Storytelling
by Kelly Chambliss
Summary: Had Hermione known what a cliché it was for a young girl to have a crush on a teacher, she might have been more cautious about giving away her heart. But she didn't know. A story about stories and how we read them.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue

**A/N:** In honor of Minerva McGonagall's 84th birthday, here's the first installment of a Minerva/Hermione story that I've had in mind for a while. I'll post a chapter every Sunday.

I like to take familiar fanfic tropes and work out my own interpretations of them. This story is my version of some of the motifs and plots common to many Minerva/Hermione fics. And the whole thing is a little meta, too. I love meta.

My thanks to the most thoughtful, careful, patient betas ever: The Real Snape and Moira of the Mountain. Both are excellent writers in their own right; don't miss their fic, archived right here at FFN.

Disclaimer: JKR and I are completely different people; she is far more hetero-normative than I.

---///---

_Storytelling_

By Kelly Chambliss

---///---

**Prologue**

**October, 1984**

The first time Hermione Granger saw a card with a black border, she had just turned four. She'd been sitting with her great-grandmother, having a snack and practicing her alphabet, when the envelope arrived in the post.

The letter had been sent to Great-Grandmother Marks, a frail but prickly old woman who spent most of her time reclining in a chair in a darkened room and who didn't believe in sugar-coating either life or language for children. Hermione liked her.

"It means someone is dead," Grandmother said in response to an eager question about the black-edged card, "and it's a silly, old-fashioned way to say so."

"Someone is dead? Who? How did they die? Are you sorry?" Hermione asked in a rush. Death interested her, but few adults seemed willing to discuss it, and she thought she'd better get out as many questions as she could before even Grandmother Marks declared the subject closed.

"No one you know," her great-grandmother replied. "And no, I'm not sorry, because he had been very sick for a very long time. He's better off now."

"But I thought death was sad," Hermione objected, remembering a deceased hamster and her tears.

"Sometimes it is, yes," Grandmother Marks nodded. Then she glanced around her room. "But sometimes. . .death is nothing to be sorry about at all."

"Will you be sorry when you die?" Hermione suspected that her mother would say this question was rude, but since her mother wasn't there, she risked it.

And Grandmother Marks didn't get angry. She even answered, after a fashion, although Hermione didn't quite understand what she meant.

"Everything dies. You should only be sorry if you don't really live before you go."

---///---

**June, 2020**

Not having heard Hermione's great-grandmother's sentiments about death borders, _The Daily Prophet_ had been edging its obituaries in black since the days of Nicolas Flamel's late middle age.

Hermione always read the death notices carefully, a habit left over from the days of the war, when the obituaries had provided perhaps the most accurate assessment of Lord Voldemort's strength and power. Nowadays, though, they mostly provided only proof that ordinary life went on in its usual familiar, natural cycle, something Hermione, at age 40, found reassuring.

Except when the natural cycle took someone she knew.

The words "professor at Hogwarts" caught her eye first, and she stared in dismay at the small notice near the bottom of the obit column. One of the few entries that wasn't accompanied by a smiling, waving photograph of the departed, it stated the facts succinctly: date and place of death, lineage, survivors (not many, just a nephew and his wife). And a final line: "No service; private interment. Family will receive guests Thursday, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Waldrick's, Diagon Alley."

Waldrick's -- a quiet restaurant with excellent food, unobtrusive service, and a private room often booked for parties and receptions. It was not, as far as Hermione knew, a common place for a wake, but perhaps the gathering wasn't intended to be one. She didn't know what sort of rite the professor might have wanted.

Nor did she know whether she would go. Or should.

Or whether she could stay away.


	2. Chapter 2: 1992 to 1994

**Chapter One**

**1992-1994 -- Hogwarts, Years Two and Three**

---///---

When she thought about it later -- and she frequently thought about it -- Hermione Granger could never pinpoint exactly when she had begun to love Minerva McGonagall.

Had she known how common her story was, had she known what a cliché it was for a young girl to have a crush on a teacher and how glibly such feelings were usually dismissed by others ("just a stage, you know, of course girls look up to teachers, such admirable women, aren't they? but she'll be crazy about boys soon enough, wait and see") -- had she known these things, she might have been more cautious about giving away her heart.

But she didn't know.

Perhaps she should have, a girl who read as much as she did, but her tastes had never run to stories of pre-teen angst. So she didn't know that her feelings were just a stage, as unoriginal and ephemeral as a bad romance novel. She didn't know that spinster schoolteachers were considered safe objects of affection for little girls -- for a little while -- but that the world tended to despise women like Minerva -- just a little -- even as it praised their worthiness. She didn't know that her tale was an old one, a trite one, one written and rewritten so often that people had ceased to read it, since everyone except Hermione knew how it would end.

Hermione thought her feelings were hers alone and that Minerva was the most powerful and interesting person she had ever seen. And by the time she'd learnt the way the world read such stories, it was far too late. She was McGonagall's woman as surely and permanently as Harry had ever been Dumbledore's man.

Many people would have said that it didn't really matter _exactly_ when she'd fallen in love with Minerva. Yet Hermione would have argued that it mattered very much indeed. Stories always had beginnings, after all, and in the beginning were words.

Before that beginning, there was merely the white emptiness of a blank page, of a story untold. But then came the sharp precision of the first letter, the first word, the bold black edge of print that marked the border between absence and presence, between the ordered and the random, between narrative and nothingness. Hermione could see the process so clearly -- knowing what came first was essential to understanding what came next, because if the story started somewhere else, then_ you_ might be someone else. You might find out that you were a different book altogether.

Hermione often thought that _her _story might have started one afternoon during her second year at Hogwarts -- a bright, cold afternoon when she went to talk to Professor McGonagall in her office.

That may have been when her first word was written.

---///---

**February, 1993 -- Hogwarts, Year Two**

If she hadn't quite loved the professor then, she did love the professor's office. She loved the massive desk with its polished surface that always looked so. . .professorial, heaped as it was with student folders, official memos, and stacks of essays.

She loved the bay window overlooking the Quidditch field and the mountains beyond, but she fully understood why McGonagall chose to sit with her back to this view: if Hermione had owned such beautiful old wooden bookcases and a tapestry of softly-moving animals in a leafy-dark forest, she wouldn't have wanted to look at anything else, either.

She loved the towering shelves and the orderly way the books were arranged by discipline, the soft colours of their spines glowing in the light that spilled from the fireplace and danced on the subdued red-and-gold pile of the thick rug. She loved the rug, too. Clearly very old, it was the only Gryffindor-coloured item in the room, which Hermione even then thought was a clever touch. It was like voices: too many were a chaos, but just one could be heard clearly.

When Hermione peered around the open door on that chilly afternoon, the fire was burning high, and the professor was standing behind her desk looking out into the smudgy purple distance. She turned at Hermione's hesitant knock.

"What can I do for you, Miss Granger?" she asked, motioning to one of the straight-backed chairs in front of the desk. In the setting sun that streamed through the window, strands of silver were visible in her black hair, but probably not even Hermione's roommate Lavender Brown, who thought all the teachers were pitifully old, would have guessed that McGonagall was already 67. That was the same age as Hermione's grandmother, and Grandmum looked _years _older than the professor. Hermione felt a surge of gratitude for magical folks' longevity; she wanted the Hogwarts faculty to live forever.

"Miss Granger?" Her teacher's voice had a sharp edge that brought Hermione back to herself with a start.

"Um. . .I. . .it's about my classes next year," Hermione stammered, sitting down at last. "I can't decide, Professor. I'm definitely taking Ancient Runes, and all the regular subjects, of course, and I think Arithmancy is very important, but I don't see how I can fit in Muggle Studies and Divination, too, because some of the classes meet at the same time, and I'd like to do Care of Magical Creatures, too, if I could, because. . ."

McGonagall held up her hands. "Stop! Please. Take a breath. Let me think for a moment." She paced slowly around the office, running her fingers absently along the backs of her books. Occasionally she would purse her lips or shake her head slightly; Hermione thought she seemed to be debating with herself.

Finally she sat behind her desk and further aligned an already-straight stack of parchments. "All right. I have a plan. But. . ." She looked sternly at Hermione over her spectacles. "It will require great effort and forbearance on your part, Miss Granger."

Hermione nodded, willing to follow wherever McGonagall led.

"Very well, then." The professor took a breath and continued, "If the Ministry would allow you to use a time-turner, you would be able to take all the courses that interest you."

"What is a time-turner?" asked Hermione eagerly.

"A device that lets you live the same hour twice, so that you can take two classes at what appears to be the same time."

"Time-travel. . ." Hermione felt almost overwhelmed by the possibility.

"Now, not a word to anyone, Miss Granger," McGonagall said. "This is quite unprecedented, and it may not work at all. We'll need the approval of the Headmaster _and_ of the Ministry, and the latter will not be easy to come by."

"But if they say 'yes,' then I. . .how does a time-turner work, Professor?"

"There will be plenty of time for a demonstration once the Ministry grants permission. _If_ they do. But be aware," McGonagall went on, her expression becoming, if possible, even more stern, "that you will be taking on a great deal of study."

"That's all right."

"Are you certain? Think carefully, now. You will have much less free time, fewer evenings to spend socialising with your friends."

"I like to study, Professor. It makes me feel. . .like anything could happen. In every book, every time you open it. . .you don't know what you'll find. The answer to everything might be on the very next page. . . I mean, it's like. . ."

She faltered to a stop. It was hard to put into words, even to herself: the comfort that came from knowing things, the little thrill that jolted her when her reading confirmed a theory that had seemed too wild when just in her head, the sense of potential in every page turned and spell learned, the rush of realising that she never had to stop -- that there would always be more books to read, more things to discover, more stories to start.

Hermione never tried to explain these feelings to her friends or housemates -- she had _some_ sense of social self-preservation, after all -- but she could tell from the sudden sparkle in McGonagall's eyes that the professor understood exactly what she was trying to say.

She laid a light hand on Hermione's arm and smiled. "I'll talk to the headmaster this week."

---///---

Out in the corridor, Hermione felt distinctly odd -- excited and anxious at once, unsettled, uncontained, as if her body couldn't hold the bubble that seemed to be expanding inside her. She was surprised to realise that despite the frosty day, she was quite warm indeed.

So the story could have started then.

---///---

**December, 1993 -- Hogwarts, Year Three**

Certainly a few more pages of it were written during the Christmas holidays of Hermione's third year. Christmas Day itself had felt tingly, what with presents, and the strangeness of not being with her parents, and the worrisome appearance of Harry's anonymously-given Firebolt. And perhaps most exciting of all, there had been Christmas dinner with the professors.

She had guessed that Professor Snape would be there -- it seemed impossible to her that so unhappy a man could have any other place to go -- and Dumbledore, of course; she couldn't imagine that he wouldn't celebrate at Hogwarts.

Yet not until the moment she entered the Great Hall was she certain that McGonagall would be joining them, although part of her felt a flicker of worry when she saw the professor. She was pleased and sorry at the same time: she hated to think that McGonagall might have no friends or home outside the castle. But on the other hand. . .she was going to have Christmas dinner with Professor McGonagall!

It was fun to find herself seated almost opposite Snape and McGonagall, although she was surprised to see the two Heads of Houses sitting side by side; she would have supposed that they would want to be as far apart as possible, given how much they were rumoured to dislike each other.

As the meal progressed, however, Hermione was forced to reread the situation. When Professor Trelawney appeared unexpectedly, trailing scarves and scattiness, McGonagall and Snape traded companionably annoyed glances that intensified when Trelawney sat down between them. And when Professor McGonagall handed a serving bowl to the Divination teacher with the words, "Tripe, Sibyll?" Snape made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort of laughter.

"I believe that is turnips, Minerva," he said blandly.

"Ah, so it is," McGonagall nodded. "My mistake." Again their eyes met, and Hermione thought they both nearly smiled.

Witnessing this exchange was something of a revelation to Hermione; it suggested that the staff inhabited an entire adult world separate from the one they shared with students. Until this moment, she had never really considered that her teachers might be different in private. But now, she felt rather as if she were trying to read a book written in a dialect she only half-understood.

And after dinner, Professor McGonagall spoke that new language to Hermione.

It happened just as Hermione approached the professor to tell her about Harry's new Firebolt. While she hesitated near one of the large Christmas trees, feeling awkward about sneaking on her friends, she overheard Dumbledore speak to McGonagall almost reproachfully.

"Minerva," he said, tilting his head towards the fluttering Professor Trelawney. "I know how Sibyll affects you, but. . .it's Christmas, my dear."

"Indeed. Sorry, Albus," said McGonagall, not sounding it. But she looked suitably solemn until the headmaster walked on; then she caught Hermione's eye and quirked the smallest of smiles at her.

It changed forever the way Hermione read her Head of House.

So her story might have begun then.


	3. Chapter 3: 1994 to 1995

**Chapter Two **

**1994-1995 -- Summer, Granger Home, and Hogwarts, Year Four**

---///---

**July, 1994 -- At the Granger Home**

Or that Christmas might have been only the prologue; the tale proper might have begun during the summer before Hermione's fourth year, on an afternoon when her parents were both at work, and she had been distinctly out of sorts. The day was hot, her clothes felt prickly against her skin, and not even _Witchy Women: Fifty Witches Who Changed the World_, which she had special-ordered from Flourish and Blotts, could hold her interest.

The information was mostly a rehash of standard history texts and the sort of details one could find in the _Encyclopedia Wizardiana_. There was nothing about Rowena Ravenclaw or Helga Hufflepuff that Hermione hadn't already read in _Hogwarts: A History_. Most of the other entries were about Quidditch players or pop stars, and she found her mind wandering.

Idly, she flicked the pages, wishing she could cast a cooling charm and thinking that perhaps she would write to Harry or Ron. Then a paragraph in the epilogue, "Other Witches of Note," caught her eye:

_"Witches have long made significant contributions by teaching in the world's great wizarding academies. Notable current headmistresses include __**Olympe Maxime**__, head of Beauxbatons in France since 1984 and __**Ellacent Collier**__, leader of Roswell Academy in the United States since 1990. Britain's own Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry boasts several talented witch instructors, among them __**Rolanda Hooch**__, a former Holyhead Harpy who has taught flying and coached Quidditch at Hogwarts since 1974, __**Minerva McGonagall**__, who joined the staff in 1956 and has held a variety of positions, and __**Pomona Sprout**__, Professor of Herbology since 1966."_

Eagerly, Hermione skimmed the rest of the chapter, but that one line was all the book had to say about McGonagall: the fact that she had filled "a variety of positions" at Hogwarts. Not a very exciting way to sum up a career of nearly forty years, Hermione thought. She felt discouraged. Was this the sort of legacy she'd have to look forward to: her whole life reduced to a vague sentence in a bad book? If she was lucky enough to be mentioned anywhere at all?

She slammed the volume shut and tossed it onto the coffee table with a disregard that she rarely showed to reading material of any kind. The waving photo of Celestina Warbeck on the cover seemed to be mocking her; irritably, she turned the book face down.

Her head hurt. Her mother kept headache powders in the drawer of her night table, and it was in rooting around for them that Hermione found a book of another sort entirely.

It was a sex manual. Hermione felt her face flame, and not because of the subject matter, or because the book was her mother's. She knew about sex, of course, and she knew her mother knew about it, too. She already owned several books designed to introduce the topic to girls; her mother had given them to her, and they had read them together. Dr Granger believed in being open and straightforward about such things.

No, Hermione flushed because she realised that for the first time, she was interested in sex as more than a theoretical curiosity. She wanted to know exactly how it worked, how it would really look, what she would have to do when. . .

She wanted to know how it would feel.

But not. . .not _really_. Not the way it would feel _with_ someone. Not yet. Right now, she just wanted. . .

Sometimes, like now, her body felt as if it had too many nerve endings: as if she were almost, but not quite, being tickled; as if she were almost, but not quite, smelling something sweet; as if she had a great, unscratchable itch. . .

As if. . .as if she wanted. . .

Slowly, Hermione opened the volume she'd taken from her mother's drawer and saw immediately that its version of sex was different from the gentle, softly-romanticised descriptions in her own books. This book told a different story, a story of specific directions. It was for people who didn't just "want" in some vague, unfocused sense, but who wanted very particular things that could be very particularly explained.

Pushing her hair off her sweaty forehead, Hermione turned to Chapter Ten: _"Self-Relaxation: The Art of Masturbation._"

_"You owe it to yourself!"_ the chapter began.

She read on. The room grew hotter, and there was an odd electricity in the air, like a thunderstorm. Or magic.

_"Orgasm can be achieved in a variety of positions,"_ the book proclaimed, and Hermione gave a rather breathless laugh, reminded of the description she'd just read of McGonagall's teaching career.

Suddenly she understood something: learning about sex must be just like learning about magic. In both cases, you studied the theory first. And then. . .

And then you had to practice.

Book in hand, Hermione went to her own room; she couldn't imagine trying something like this on her parents' bed, no matter how unlikely it was to work, no matter how unable she'd be ever to do it. She'd feel stupid, she'd fail, she'd make herself laugh, it would be embarrassing. . .

Tentatively, she lay down and slipped off her shorts and knickers. The air felt marginally cooler on her damp skin, and she felt again that strange bubble expanding inside her, something that couldn't get out and that yet she couldn't keep in.

Closing her eyes, Hermione reached her hand between her legs and drew a finger along herself, trying to read her body, the way the book had suggested.

Something flashed through her, a sensation so strong that it was beyond pleasure, beyond pain, it took her breath, it was terrifying, and she drew her knees to her chest and thought _no, I won't, no, it's. . .how could anyone do this, how could they?_

Did all women do this? Did her mother? Her dorm-mate Lavender, with many giggles, had once whispered that she did, but Hermione hadn't believed her. Did the professors do it? Did Sprout? Did. . . McGonagall?

This thought pushed Hermione up and off the bed, yet she paused before picking up her knickers. Yes, she'd frightened herself with the power of her own touch, but still. . .still, it had felt good, and it wasn't something bad, it was in her mother's book, and it was quite, quite normal, the other books said so, too.

_You owe it to yourself. . ._

Hermione lay down again, but suddenly felt shy and helpless. _I need a teacher_, she thought desperately. She couldn't do something like this on her own.

It was too bad that someone older and more experienced couldn't help with such things. It would be so useful, when the time came for _real_ sex, to have been taught how it was supposed to feel. If it were real sex, with a boy like. . .Ron or someone, then she'd have to worry about whether it was good for them, whether _they_ were enjoying themselves. She'd have to try to read them, to include their stories, too, and she'd be anxious and nervous, and it would all be ruined. . .

How much better it would be if she had practiced with someone whose whole goal it was just to make sure that _she_ felt good. A woman -- it would be best if she could practice with a woman, because then it wouldn't hurt, not the way the books said sex sometimes did at first with a man. If she had a woman to teach her, it would just be about pleasure, _her_ pleasure, and knowing what to expect for later, for when it was real. . .

Unconsciously Hermione had been sliding her fingers over herself, and she felt wet now, and the words in her mind had colour and tastes: they were blue and golden and sweet, another new language entirely, and it was Professor McGonagall's fingers, not her own, that were smoothly rubbing, and Professor McGonagall who was pressing warm lips against her and softly telling a story that Hermione could almost hear and . . .oh. . .

oh, yes

. . .

Yes, looking back, she could see that an entire new chapter of her story had started then.

---///---

**Autumn Term, 1994 -- Hogwarts, Year Four**

In her fourth year, however, her feelings had become harder to read.

The start of term had been difficult. Even though Hermione tried not to let herself think of Professor McGonagall when she practiced her new "art" of orgasm, she didn't always succeed. Sometimes she visualised the professor quite clearly indeed, and so for the first few weeks of the term, she felt awkward around her. She even avoided her when she could, in case McGonagall were one of those people Hermione had read about in _Advanced Self-Defense for the Practical Wizard_: a Legilimens, someone who could read minds. The headmaster was rumoured to possess this skill, and Hermione often wondered if Professor Snape did. It's true she never sensed this ability in McGonagall, but she had come to realise that there was a great deal about the Hogwarts faculty that she didn't know.

She wasn't sure how McGonagall would react if she knew about Hermione's fantasies. Would she be angry? Exasperated? Feel embarrassed or awkward? Any of these would be bad enough, but Hermione didn't think she could bear the professor's sympathy or understanding; she'd feel like an idiot child.

At the very least, McGonagall would want some sort of explanation, and Hermione wasn't sure if she'd be able to find the right words, if she could make her understand that she, Hermione, most certainly did _not_ entertain any silly romantic daydreams about her teachers. She did _not_ have a giddy "crush" like the one Hannah Abbott had last year on that Chudley Cannons chaser. It wasn't like that. Not at all. Her story was different.

Hermione just wanted a. . .a mentor. That was it -- a sexual mentor she could trust. Didn't they actually have such things once upon a time, where kindly older men taught boys to. . .? She was sure she'd read about it in some Muggle history book or other.

Well. When she imagined herself trying to explain any of this to Professor McGonagall, she felt squirmy and foolish, and it was far easier just to keep her distance as much as possible.

This resolution seemed especially wise after an unsettling conversation she had one evening in the girls' dormitory with Parvati and Lavender. Their topic, of course, had been the upcoming Tri-Wizard Tournament; no one in the school seemed to be able to talk of anything else.

"Well," said Parvati finally, "I'm just glad it's this year and not next year. Can you imagine having to worry about our O.W.L.s while all _this_ was going on?"

Lavender laughed. "Who'd even worry? Who could give O.W.L.s a second thought with all those scowling, sexy Durmstrang boys around?"

"_I'm_ worried about O.W.L.s right now," Hermione countered. "I know they're more than a year away for us, but Professor McGonagall said --"

Parvati and Lavender groaned in unison. "Never. Say. Those. Words. Again," Lavender ordered, pointing her wand with mock menace. "Or it's Hex City."

"What words?" Hermione was genuinely confused.

"'Professor McGonagall said,' 'Professor McGonagall said,'" Lavender mimicked, giggling.

"Do you even realise you say that about fifty times a day?" Parvati asked.

"Have a little pity," Lavender said. "Just because _you're_ in love with the old thing doesn't mean the rest of us are."

"I am not!"

"Oh, give over." Lavender rolled her eyes. "You're like an open book. Anyone can see you fancy her something rotten."

"That's not true!"

"Don't be embarrassed," said Parvati, with a kind smile that Hermione found almost worse than Lavender's teasing. "People like who they like. It's not something you can help."

Lavender nodded seriously, her eyes round and solemn. "That's right. If you have the hots for McGonagall, then you do. I mean, she's horribly old and everything, and she's not pretty at all, but none of that matters if you really fancy her."

Hermione could tell that Lavender was thinking of herself as extremely grown-up and sophisticated and open-minded.

It irritated her more than she could express.

"I _don't_ fancy the professor," she said. "I just respect her opinion. And if you can't see the difference, that's _your_ problem."

She climbed into bed and closed her curtains firmly.

---///---

**December, 1994 -- Hogwarts, Year Four**

Then Viktor Krum invited her to the Yule Ball, and Hermione found herself yearning for the heat and simplicity of the previous summer, when she had had to think of only what she owed to herself, not what she might want to give -- or not give -- to others.

It wasn't an issue of sex with Viktor, of course. He behaved like what her great-grandmother would have called "a perfect gentleman," and even if this term wasn't one that Grandmother Marks always meant as a compliment, it exactly described Hermione's experience of Viktor Krum.

He kissed her, yes; that was only to be expected, and Hermione wanted him to. It felt. . .nice, but nothing more, and that was expected, too. Hermione had read too many good books to believe in any romance-novel clichés about kisses that made your toes curl or about finding the one person that you knew at first sight would be your soul-mate. Viktor was a first "date," to use her parents' word, and as such, he was all that she needed him to be: he made her feel confident and pretty and smart -- and not just pretty and smart, but pretty _because_ she was smart. He'd met her in the library, after all; he liked her bookishness. He liked _her_.

But he did make her wonder: what if he _had_ wanted more, not in terms of sleeping together, but in terms of more of a commitment to him? What if he'd really wanted to be her boyfriend, to have them be a couple, to be part of her life and thoughts and plans? How much would she have been willing to give him?

How much of herself would she be willing to give up to _anyone_, either now or in the future? Sometimes it seemed to her that she had already given too much of herself away: to Harry and to Ron and even to Dumbledore and Voldemort. So often lately, her life seemed to be all about other people's needs, other people's missions, as if she were only a character in _their_ stories, herself valuable only as a sort of living encyclopedia.

But if she didn't give of herself, if she kept it all, how much would she regret _that_? What would it be like, to be Professor McGonagall or Professor Sprout or Madam Hooch, spending years -- decades -- on constant call in an institution, looking after children not your own?

Being alone, for all that you lived with a thousand other people?

---///---

**March, 1995 -- Hogwarts, Year Four**

Hermione closed her book with a sigh. The chattering crowd of fifth-years clustered around the common-room notice-board had finally grown too loud to be ignored, and so she gave up her attempts to read the next day's Potions assignment and let herself be swept away by the tide of talk about careers.

The annual notice had appeared, the one that told the fifth-years when they were supposed to meet with their Heads of House for a session of career advice. Only one more year, Hermione thought, and the notice would finally be directed at _them_. At herself and Ron and Harry and the rest of their year.

She was both impatient of and glad for the wait. Of course she had read the career pamphlets each year, even though they weren't technically intended for her. At first, she'd read them just because of her consuming curiosity about every aspect of the wizarding world, but gradually, she began taking the brochures more personally.

Some day -- soon -- she would have to choose one of these career paths, and so far, nothing quite seemed to fit. Careers seemed to be like boys: people always told you that the "right" one was out there for you and that somehow you'd know it when you saw it. But she hadn't. She'd read every single pamphlet, but she had no sense of a match, of _the_ one-and-only thing she was supposed to do. Maybe she wasn't reading them properly; maybe she didn't know what to look for.

Perhaps Professor McGonagall could tell her what to do, she thought, although even as the idea was forming, she knew it wouldn't happen quite that way. Even with advice, she'd have to decide for herself. Still, it wasn't like the time she'd wished for a sex teacher. With careers, at least, McGonagall _could_ be her mentor; it was expected. "Career Advice -- Fifth-year students will be required to attend a short meeting with their Head of House," so the notice plainly read. You were _supposed_ to consult them.

Next year.

Yet it was only a few days later that Hermione found her steps leading her toward the professor's office. There were no fifth-year career appointments scheduled just then -- she'd checked -- and she found McGonagall alone, seated behind her desk. The afternoon sun was slanting through the window, turning the red-and-gold rug to flame but putting the professor's face in shadow.

Hermione knocked, and McGonagall motioned to the usual chair, spoke the usual words. "What can I do for you, Miss Granger?"

"I know it's too early, Professor, but I. . .would it be all right if I talked with you about careers this year? I mean, I can do it next year, too, if there's a rule about it or something, but I just feel as if I should be planning already. O.W.L.s aren't that far away, you know." She stopped, hoping she hadn't been babbling.

She couldn't see McGonagall's expression, but the professor settled back in her chair, so Hermione assumed that she wasn't about to be dismissed.

"No, there's no rule that says you must wait until fifth year, Miss Granger," McGonagall said. "Of course I'm happy to discuss careers with you whenever you like. Do you have a particular goal in mind?"

"Well. . .no. That's the problem, you see. It's fourth year already, and I don't know what I want to do!"

She braced herself for a comment about how young she was, how much time she had, but the professor did her the courtesy of taking her seriously.

"It's a difficult decision, I know. And just now, it doesn't help to be told that you can change your mind later, does it?"

In fact, McGonagall seemed to understand so well that for the first time, Hermione did consider that perhaps she _could_ read minds. Suddenly and maddeningly, her head filled with stubbornly-vivid memories of all her McGonagall-related sexual fantasies, and she felt her face burn.

Luckily, the professor didn't seem to notice; with relief, Hermione decided she mustn't be a Legilimens after all. "I cannot tell you what career to pursue, of course," McGonagall was saying. "And I don't think you expect me to. But you can tell me your interests, and I can describe the opportunities that might suit them."

Hermione collected her thoughts. "I suppose what I like best is to read and research," she said finally. "And theory of magic, I love the theory, Professor. To see how it all works and why, and then to _make_ it work, to devise the spells and charms. . .do you know what I mean?" She wasn't exactly being coherent, she knew, but again McGonagall seemed to read her clearly, for she leaned forward with a smile.

"I believe I do, Miss Granger. The pleasures of pure research can be great indeed. It's a rigourous path, however. It requires several years of wizarding training beyond the secondary level, and then, depending on your field, you'll probably need a practical apprenticeship as well. But in my opinion, you would be excellently suited to advanced study. There are several high-quality institutions that I could recommend, and I think you'd have no trouble gaining admission."

She flicked her wand slightly, and several brochures wafted their way from a side table into Hermione's hands. The one on top was for Bridgeford University, the premiere wizarding university in the UK. Hermione had looked up the _curriculum vitae_ of all the Hogwarts staff and knew that only McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sinistra had attended this most prestigious of schools. Not even Dumbledore had gone. McGonagall had taken a first in Transfiguration. Sure enough, "Transfiguration" was still one of the main programs listed under the university's name; she'd need only to tap the word with her wand if she wanted to read about it.

"You went to Bridgeford," she surprised herself by saying to the professor. She hadn't intended to be personal.

"I did," McGonagall nodded, but volunteered nothing further. Hermione would have liked to know more of her story -- had she been happy there? Was she glad she'd gone? Why hadn't she pursued a more high-powered academic career? Did she regret her solitary life? -- but she didn't dare ask. The professor would probably tell her that it was none of her business, and she'd be right.

But there was something Hermione needed to know for her own sake, and she nerved herself to ask.

"It's a lot of study, Professor, and you know I love that. But what about. . .life? I don't know, having a family or. . .someone. . .?"

She trailed off unhappily as something flickered in McGonagall's eyes, and the professor stood up slowly to look out toward the mist-shrouded mountains. Hermione waited a bit fearfully. Had she crossed a line somehow? Was she going to be ordered to leave the office?

But when McGonagall turned back to her and spoke, she didn't sound angry, just quiet.

"There will be sacrifices, of course, Miss Granger. Every life demands them. You'll need to decide for yourself what your priorities will be, what you'll be willing to give up, if it comes to that. And usually it does, one way or another."

Then she smiled.

"But I think you'll find that a balance is possible."


	4. Chapter 4: 1995 to 1996, Part I

**Chapter Three**

**1995-1996 -- Hogwarts, Year Five -- Part I**

---///---

Whenever its actual first word had been, the story of Hermione's regard for McGonagall was well past its opening chapters by the time of her fifth year at Hogwarts. She was still having trouble choosing the right vocabulary for the tale, however.

Her feelings for Minerva McGonagall were complicated and confusing, resistant to categories, impervious to imprecise abstractions like "crush" or "infatuation" or "attraction." Or the over-used "love."

She liked to think that "bewitchment" came closest. She felt like the word itself -- "be-witch-ment," the "witch" tucked inside, encased and enclosed by another's being and essence. The structure of the word was a lovely metaphor for the way the pleasures of McGonagall's presence and voice and regard surrounded her like a cocoon, like the blanket of a warming spell cast and welcomed.

So Hermione let the words and metaphors play in her mind, and she often let thoughts of the professor's thin fingers and lips play her body. She no longer shied away from her daydreams or seriously worried that anyone would try to read her mind, since surely Legilimens had better things to do than to pry into people's sexual fantasies. Besides, the books said that not many people could master the skill, anyway.

And it wasn't as if she ever intended to make her feelings known to McGonagall or deluded herself into thinking that the professor felt similarly about her. No, the sensations inside her were hers alone, and she would keep them secret, let them fill her, let them burn into her like a fire, erotic and forbidden and. . .bewitching.

---///---

**October, 1995 -- Hogwarts, Year Five**

And then, not long before Halloween of her fifth year, something happened that, in retrospect, she could see had changed the course of her life. Not in the dramatic way that Voldemort, say, changed everything for everyone. But still, afterwards, her story had never been quite the same.

She'd been in the library.

Hermione loved the Hogwarts library. Quiet, shadowy, steeped in the scents of magic and history and old paper, the library often felt more like home to Hermione than did the Gryffindor common room. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate her friends and housemates, but there were times when their presence was just too much; she needed solitude to sustain herself.

She liked the library best in the early morning, just before dawn, when the shadows had become pools of midnight-blue, and she could sit alone and read by the light of her wand. Sometimes in the silence, the books even seemed to whisper, as if they couldn't bear to keep all their information tamped down between covers.

Usually she borrowed Harry's Marauder's Map so that she could be sure of having the place to herself. She always left as soon as the Map told her that anyone was approaching. It wasn't that she was afraid of getting into trouble -- for all her sniffiness, Madam Pince didn't actually seem to mind if Hermione used the library in the early hours. It was just that she preferred to slip away before anyone else arrived in the morning, leaving no one but the books, and sometimes the ghosts, to know she had been there.

This year, she had to be even more vigilant, since the unspeakable Dolores Umbridge had taken to wandering the corridors at odd times. Once she had nearly surprised Hermione in the stacks, and only the distraction of Peeves had saved her from discovery.

One morning in October, Hermione sat reading one of her guilty pleasures, a century-old storybook about girls at a magical boarding school; she'd found it in a dusty corner of one of the library's seldom-visited annexes. It was the sort of thing she'd never read as a child, and she was finding it fascinating. The light from her wand enclosed the pages in a circle of gold, like a protective ward, and she felt cozy and comforted, somehow suspended in time.

The Map lay just outside the edge of the bright circle, and Hermione suddenly thought she saw tiny black footsteps marching along the fourth floor toward the library. As she brought the light towards the Map to get a better look, she accidentally brushed the tip of her wand against the parchment, and a very strange thing happened.

The surface of the Map shimmered and blurred, and the inked outline of the castle floors disappeared. In its place was a photograph of a darkened room.

Hermione peered at it, forgetting the possible person in the corridor. At first she couldn't see much; the only light in the photo came from a banked fire in a grate, and the perspective was odd: it was as if she were looking down into the room from a vantage point near the ceiling.

Gradually she could make out a leaded oriel window edged in the thinnest of grey light; it hadn't been visible when she'd first looked at the photograph, but had become clear as the natural light outside the room brightened, just the way the sky had been doing outside the library.

Then abruptly, she understood. The picture wasn't a photograph at all: it was more like a window, or a Muggle closed-circuit camera, and it showed what was happening now, at this moment. The room on the Map must be somewhere in the castle.

Hermione frowned. She'd never heard about this aspect of the Marauder's Map before; she wondered if Harry even knew about it. Had the Marauders actually charmed their Map to let them spy not just on people's whereabouts, but on their activities as well?

Unfortunately, she admitted, it would be just like them. Well, not like Remus Lupin, perhaps, but like the others. The more she learned about James and Sirius, the less she liked them, not that she would ever dream of saying so to Harry.

The light outside the library windows was tinged with pink now, and so, too, was the mysterious room on the Map. Hermione could definitely tell that she was looking into it from above, and in addition to the window and the fireplace, she could make out a tall wooden chest, an armchair with a book-laden table next to it, and a bed.

It was a wide four-poster bed without curtains, and not surprisingly given the early hour, someone appeared to be sleeping in it, beneath a heap of bedclothes.

It had to be a staff member's quarters, since no students had private rooms. The chamber was large and well-proportioned, so it probably belonged to someone senior. . .But she knew so little about the locations or interiors of staff housing that it could be anyone's room, even Dumbledore's, although she would have expected his private quarters to be far too well-warded to yield to any schoolboy map.

Another thought struck her: maybe the Map worked like the Room of Requirement. Maybe it showed you the thing you most needed to see. Hermione drew in her breath sharply. She'd been on the look-out for Umbridge; could this be Umbridge's room? Even though it seemed far too tasteful and kitten-free, it might. . .

But then the sleeper shifted position, and Hermione watched as the movement uncovered a well-known thin face and a spill of long, dark hair, stark against the white pillows.

It was Professor McGonagall. And she was not sleeping alone.

---///---

Umbridge could have charged into the library with a squad of Dementors, and Hermione probably would not have noticed. She was too engrossed in what the Map window was revealing.

McGonagall had turned onto her side and slipped her arm around the waist of the person lying next to her. The memory of the surreptitious shared glances at Christmas dinner flashed into Hermione's head, and for a shocked moment, she thought the other figure in the bed was Professor Snape, but a closer look proved her wrong.

This person had breasts -- full, naked breasts that now rested lightly on Professor McGonagall's equally-naked forearm. It was a woman, a thick-set woman, ruddy-faced, with short, grey hair.

It was their current Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank.

Professor McGonagall was sharing her bed with Professor Grubbly-Plank.

And not that Hermione was any judge of such things, but if she'd had to guess, she would have said that this wasn't the first time. There was something about their intimate tangle of sheets and limbs that seemed comfortable, familiar.

Hermione had occasionally spent nights in the same bed as someone else -- her mum, for instance, during a week when the two of them had gone to care for her mother's ailing aunt; and a girl cousin, once, on a family camping trip -- and she remembered how carefully they had slept, stiffly and politely, almost unmoving on separate sides of the bed so as not to touch each other.

Of course, you wouldn't worry about touching someone in your bed if you'd had sex with them, but even then, Hermione thought, it would probably take you a while to get to know them, to learn, for instance, that they'd like to be snuggled up to. No, she decided. McGonagall and Grubbly-Plank definitely weren't new lovers. She'd bet galleons on it.

It was full daylight now, and Hermione knew that she should get back to the common room. The house-elves had long been bustling about, and the earliest risers would already be at breakfast. Madam Pince could be along any moment, in fact; she often stopped in the library before going to the Great Hall.

And in any case, Hermione told herself firmly, it was wrong to spy on Professor McGonagall, or anyone else, for that matter. She was going to put the Map away and forget that she had ever stumbled on this hidden use of it.

But surely it wouldn't hurt to have one more look. It wasn't as if the professors were doing anything they wouldn't want others to see. Just sleeping.

All right, sleeping naked and together. But still.

Hermione turned to the Map once more.

McGonagall hadn't moved: she remained lying on her side, the sheet wrapped decorously around her, for which Hermione was grateful. The sight of her professor's bare arm and shoulder had been enough of a jolt; the thought of seeing McGonagall completely unclothed was more than she could stand just now. She could barely breathe as it was.

But Grubbly-Plank, she saw with a start, was awake. Without rousing the woman next to her or dislodging the arm across her middle, the Magical Creatures professor had sat up against the dark wood of the bed's headboard. With one hand, she was stroking McGonagall's hair; with the other, she was smoking a pipe. The smoke curled lazily around her, and she wore a half-smile as she gazed out the window.

After a few moments, Grubbly-Plank extinguished the pipe with a wave of her hand and lifted her wand from the bedside table. As Hermione watched, she _accio_'d a dressing gown from the broad seat beneath the window and got out of bed.

She should look away, Hermione knew, but she couldn't. She'd never seen an older woman naked before; her mother had always sent her out of the room when she'd given their sick aunt a sponge-bath ("Auntie's a very private person," she'd said).

In her teaching robes, Professor Grubbly-Plank looked solid and substantial; her arms, when she rolled up her sleeves to deal with animals, were muscular and tanned. Without her robes, she seemed softer, rounder, like one of those statues of ancient fertility goddesses, all heavy breasts and voluptuous hips. Yet as she thrust her arms into her dressing-gown, Hermione could see muscle shifting under the pale skin of her torso. Her thighs were muscular, too, thick and sturdy, and she stood as if planted, her feet wide apart, as she knotted her sash.

Hermione tried to imagine looking at that ample body with desire, and realised that she could: not for herself, particularly (she thought she'd prefer a more angular type), but she could easily envision someone relishing the generous curves, the strong limbs, the supple fingers (although she couldn't quite have said why that last adjective had suddenly occurred to her).

As Hermione watched, her point of view suddenly shifted, and she found herself watching the scene from about midway down the side wall. She spared a moment to wonder about the magical theory behind it all, but then decided to think about that later. It must be nearly time for Professor McGonagall to get up. . .

Sure enough, Professor Grubbly-Plank crossed to the window seat to pick up another dressing gown, this one tartan, that she carried to the bed. She bent over the sleeping woman and kissed her cheek; McGonagall stirred and smiled, stretching her arms over her head. Hermione glanced away, in case the blankets should fall, and when she looked back, McGonagall was sitting up, her sheet-covered legs drawn up to her chest, and her arms clasped about them.

Hermione gazed at the professor, with her hair streaming down her back, her face tilted upwards and smiling, and all at once she seemed like a stranger. For the moment, there was nothing of the strict teacher, the crisp deputy, the stern Head of House: there was only a woman, rested and at ease.

This image was dispelled almost at once, though, when the professor's lips thinned, and she frowned, waving a hand through the air in front of her face. Even with her hair down, she looked just as she did when her patience was at the snapping point, and everyone knew the next word she spoke would be "Detention!"

But this time, when her mouth moved, no sound emerged; clearly the mapmakers' skills hadn't extended to audio as well as visual surveillance. Hermione guessed that McGonagall was objecting to the smoke in the room, and sure enough, Grubbly-Plank, her expression both abject and amused, Vanished her pipe.

Then she wanded a fire into the fireplace and reached over to toss the tartan dressing gown onto McGonagall's knees. It needed no special skill in lip-reading for Hermione to see that she said, "It's getting late."

McGonagall nodded, smiling again, and behind Hermione, Madam Pince bustled in. "Here already?" she said, sounding half-approving and half-grudging. "Mind you put everything back in its place before breakfast, now."

The new day had begun.

---///---

In the week that followed, Hermione thought of little else besides what she had seen in the Marauder's Map. Not even the growing menace of Umbridge could seriously distract her from her absorption in what she had learnt:

Professor McGonagall had a lover. A female lover. And it was Professor Grubbly-Plank.

During their next Care of Magical Creatures class, Hermione heard not a word of the lesson. A tiny part of her mind worried about this (she'd have to get the notes from Parvati), but the rest of her was too busy studying the professor.

Except for recognising (guiltily) that Grubbly-Plank was a far better teacher than Hagrid, Hermione had paid little attention to this temporary instructor, noting nothing beyond the fact that the professor was brusque, terse, and capable. But now she wondered what the _woman_ was like, this plain and earthy woman who had managed to attract the prim, intellectual Minerva McGonagall.

Well, for one thing, she was efficient. Hermione watched as Grubbly-Plank wasted no movements in preparing grub mash for the students to feed to some recently-hatched but abandoned powderpuffer chicks. Professor McGonagall would like efficiency. And they were both practical women who valued well-honed, well-applied skills. But Grubbly-Plank seemed so. . .blunt, so rough-edged, so . . .

Hermione was distracted by a sudden fantasy of Grubbly-Plank kissing McGonagall, not the chaste peck she'd used to awaken her on the morning Hermione had seen them in the Map, but a fierce, hard, open-mouthed kiss, full of tongue and teeth, her hands wound in McGonagall's hair. . .

"How long before the powder they emit is of sufficient strength to be used in pain potions? Miss Granger?"

Professor Grubbly-Plank was looking at her, the whole class was looking at her, and Ron declared later that no Magical Creature, not even the blast-ended skrewts, had ever been as strange or horrifying as the unprecedented sight of Hermione not knowing the answer to a teacher's question.

---///---

Hermione gave up speculating about the intricacies of sexual appeal. McGonagall and Grubbly-Plank wanted each other, maybe even loved each other, and that was that. It didn't matter why, and she wouldn't be able to find out, anyway. She would never know the Magical Creatures professor as anything other than a teacher, and teachers obviously drew a sharp line between their professional and private selves. Hermione could understand the need.

But she couldn't stop herself from thinking about the revelation that Professor McGonagall liked women. Had she always? When had she first realised -- as early as her student days? When had she been sure? Really sure? Had she ever wanted to be with a man? Did her family know? What did her friends think? Hermione sometimes wanted to scream with frustration at her inability to find answers to such questions. The library would be no help this time, and she couldn't think where else to turn.

There was always the Map, of course. It could have told her how McGonagall led a life loving women, or at least loving _**a**_ woman, but after that first morning, Hermione had resisted the temptation to activate the Map's secret enchantment. It hadn't been easy: the desire to look again at McGonagall's bedroom was often as strong as any spell. Yet she was resolved not to.

She tried to distract herself by studying the Map itself, hoping to figure out the extent of its surveillance capabilities. She wanted to see if it would let people look into any room in the castle, or just the one. Did you need different spells to get it to show different places? Would the Map behave in the same way for any witch or wizard?

And how had they managed to make it work at all, the Marauders? Not for the first time, Hermione marvelled at the magical ability that had gone into creating that Map. How had four schoolboys, even very advanced schoolboys, done it? Had they used Dark magic? Power was always tempting. . .

But she had shaken off these fears and decided that even if it _was_ rather creepy to think of Remus and Sirius and Harry's dad as magical Peeping Toms, that didn't make the Map sinister. It was just an extreme version of their typical pranks. These were boys who had thought it was funny to risk letting their werewolf friend tear up another student. They weren't going to blink at a little voyeurism.

At first it had been difficult to find a place where she could work on the Map in secret. The common room was out of the question: the fewer people who watched her, the better. Then, too, Ron and Harry would surely have been curious about what she was doing, and up till now, they hadn't been. Since she went to the library so frequently in the early mornings, Harry had got into the habit of leaving the Map in her keeping until he needed it. So far, he hadn't shown any signs of wanting to take it back, but on the whole, she thought it wiser not to remind him too often that she had it.

And she couldn't safely take it to the library in the evening, either; there were always at least a few people studying there, and Madam Pince often remained even after student curfew. Her dormitory was impossible, too. It was frustrating; there was just no place for privacy in a boarding school. No wonder the professors were vigilant about protecting what little personal space they had.

Finally, she settled on the Prefects' bathroom. It was usually deserted, and she was more than able to shield her wand and the Map with a water-repelling charm. If anyone came in, she'd simply Banish the Map and take out a book; the others were accustomed to seeing her read and soak in the tub. Harry and Ron, too, were used to her wandering off to study in the evenings; they wouldn't come looking for her.

She missed Harry and Ron, she realised. What with OWL prep and her recent. . .distractions, she hadn't seen much of them. She'd make it up to them, she vowed. Soon. But she had her own needs, too, and she was not going to feel guilty if occasionally she wanted to put herself first.

---///---

**November, 1995 -- Hogwarts, Year Five**

Her initial experiments with the Map were not very rewarding. She used her lit wand to tap any number of castle rooms on the Map, but none of them turned into a magic viewing screen. The Great Hall and the Headmaster's office didn't, of course, but she wasn't surprised. The Head's office was far too magical a space to yield to schoolboy spells. And probably any attempts to meddle with the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall would register in the wards or something. It wouldn't have been worth the Marauders' time to watch the Hall, anyway; the space was too open and public.

But she'd held high hopes for the staffroom. What place was more likely to attract the attention of the school's biggest pranksters than the one room that could be counted on to hold more of their natural enemies -- the professors -- than any other? And she had no doubt that, beyond any practical purpose, the sheer audacity of bugging the staff's main sanctuary would have struck the Marauders as highly appealing.

Yet the staffroom stubbornly remained just an ink outline on parchment. So did the Gryffindor common rooms and dormitories. With some trepidation, she tried all the chambers that she thought might be professors' private rooms. Nothing. Then, after she tried thinking like a Marauder -- or maybe more like George and Fred -- she tried the public toilets as well. Still nothing. But whether this was because the Map wasn't enchanted to show these spaces, or because she was using the wrong activation charm, she didn't know.

Or maybe she had been right from the start, and the Map _was_ like the Room of Requirement, responsive to the deepest needs of each user.

But what _were_ they, exactly -- her deepest needs?

---///---

The warm water of the Prefects' bath caressed her, and the air around her shimmered with rainbow-coloured bubbles from the taps, and Hermione wrestled with her conscience.

No matter what Professor McGonagall might be doing, however innocuous, it would be wrong to spy on her. Although Hermione had done a great deal of spying in the last few years, she had done so only in the face of genuine necessity. Only in the service of a greater good.

But there was no such justification on offer for watching McGonagall in her bedroom. It would be wrong, and she was well aware that it was wrong. The question was, would she be willing to do it anyway? And if she did. . .?

Hermione decided that she didn't want to think about what such a choice might mean. Because she knew she was going to do it. She needed to.

---///---

She got out of the bath and towelled dry. Seating herself on the padded bench that lined one side of the room, she dimmed the lights with a wave of her wand. Then, silently, deep in the room's secret shadows, she spread the Map out beside her, touched it with her lit wand, and thought about Minerva McGonagall.

As before, the parchment flickered and blurred, and the professor's bedroom gradually resolved itself into focus.

Hermione's heart pounded, and she felt a flash of exasperation with herself for being as bad as the Marauders. Except that it _wasn't_ the same, not really. _They_ were pranksters and worse, while she. . .she loved the professor; she'd never hurt or embarrass her. She. . .

Hermione tightened her lips in unconscious imitation of an annoyed McGonagall. No. She had said she wasn't going to look for ways to excuse herself. She might have better motives than the Marauders, but she was just as out of line.

Well, then. She might as well at least do the thing thoroughly. In for a sickle, in for a galleon.

The room beckoned.

The space Hermione looked down on was as cozy as before: a fire burned in the grate, and the room was soft with candlelight. A low bookcase against one wall had escaped her notice earlier; a few framed prints hung on the walls. But the room as a whole was uncluttered and tidy, except for a rather comforting jumble of books and parchments on the table next to the armchair. There were no portraits; clearly the professor didn't want to be accessible to a portrait's gossipy gaze. Or a student's, either, Hermione thought ruefully. Well, at least she was no gossip.

At first the room was empty, but then an oblong of bright light fell on the floor as a door next to the bed opened, and McGonagall emerged from what must have been the bathroom.

She was dressed as Hermione had never seen her, neither in teaching clothes nor in nightwear, but in the long, free-flowing undershift that witches often wore beneath their robes; Hermione had seen them in Madam Malkin's shop. She thought of the shifts as something adult and distant, so different from the school skirts and jeans that she and her friends usually wore. McGonagall's shift was a soft sage-green, and her hair, out of its bun and tied at the nape of her neck, made a dark trail down her back. Hermione both recognised her and didn't; this private McGonagall was going to take some getting used to.

The professor passed through the bedroom and out a second door; the sitting room, Hermione supposed. She wasn't sure if the Map's enchantment could move from room to room, but almost immediately her perspective shifted, and she was in a small living room, looking at it not from the ceiling this time, but from a corner near what must be the main door.

Like the professor's office, this room was packed with bookshelves; there was a small sofa, heaped with cushions, and two armchairs near the fire. A carved cabinet stood against the wall near the bedroom door, and from this cabinet the professor took a heavy-looking squat bottle and a globe-shaped glass. But only one: she must not have expected Professor Grubbly-Plank this evening.

McGonagall took her drink -- brandy? -- to one of the armchairs and sank into it, bending one leg beneath her and freshening the fire with a flick of her wand. Then she simply sat, watching the flames and sipping, her expression inscrutable.

Hermione realised that in neither room had she seen any textbooks or student essays, stacks of which seemed to live permanently on the desk in the professor's office. In fact, in all the times to come, all the times when she would yield to the shameful, infinitely exciting temptation to spy, Hermione would never see a single piece of student work in these most private of apartments.

The firelight flickered, highlighting the planes of McGonagall's face, shaping her cheekbones to blade-sharpness as she sat, the occasional movement of glass and hand doing little to disturb the sense of her deep stillness. Whether she was content or unhappy or just resting, Hermione couldn't tell.

She and McGonagall both sat quietly for a few minutes, and then, with a whispered "_nox_," Hermione touched her wand to the Map. For an instant, the Marauder's Map became a solid black square, and then the drawing of the castle corridor appeared once more, a tiny dot labelled "M. McGonagall" all that remained of the professor and her fire.


	5. Chapter 5: 1995 to 1996, Part II

**Chapter Four**

**Hogwarts, Year Five -- Part II**

---///---

**December, 1995 - June, 1996 -- Hogwarts, Year Five**

Giving in to the hot, forbidden thrill of watching didn't exactly become easier for Hermione as the year progressed, but it became more necessary, seeping into her blood like one of the dark, addictive, mind-changing potions described on the pages of _Addicerio_, an ancient tome Hermione occasionally examined in the Restricted Section.

She had found this book by accident during one of her researches into the Chamber of Secrets. Its pages listed the names of addictive potions and described their effects, but instead of instructions on how to brew them, the book offered only blank space. She'd learnt later that the pages were supposedly charmed to show the recipes only if a reader's mind were suited to them.

Hermione sometimes felt driven to return to the _Addicerio_, using it as a sort of barometer to her moral state. Every time the pages remained blank, she felt relieved to know that at least she hadn't gone so far into the darkness that such a book would yield its secrets to her. She took this as a sign that she was doing with the Map had caused no lasting harm.

But as time went on, her fears grew, and she stopped checking the book lest someday she should actually see the lists of banned and illegal ingredients scroll across the page, the stark black strokes of the letters proclaiming with fierce finality the depths of her depravity.

Each time Hermione activated the Map's enchantment, she swore it would be the last time, that she would never again do this thing. And each time her resolve would hold for a day or two, perhaps three. . .once even an entire week. But gradually the need would overtake her again, and she would creep to the most secluded corner she could find to light her wand once more and sit within its circle of brightness to watch. And watch.

She had learnt that the Map's room-revealing charm also worked on McGonagall's office, though nowhere else. What this said about the Marauders or the Map or herself, she no longer let herself wonder, but she knew she liked to observe the professor at work in her study. For one thing, it felt less intrusive than spying on her private rooms; for another, even when McGonagall was doing little more than marking the endless essays, she seemed so professional, so competent, so in control that Hermione felt a little shiver.

Essay-marking, Hermione found, was not necessarily a passive exercise. Sometimes McGonagall would laugh aloud at something a student had written; other times she just rolled her eyes. When she began a stint of marking, her quill usually moved smoothly across the sheets, but often by the time she reached the end of a stack, she would use the pen almost as a sword, stabbing it into the pages and drawing sweeping underlines and exclamation points. Once, with just a disgusted flick of her hand, she sent an entire pile of parchments flying about the room like missiles.

Teaching, Hermione could see, was often a frustrating profession.

But not always. More than once, she would see McGonagall smile with satisfaction as she read an essay; sometimes Hermione was certain she recognised the parchment as her own. And she'd had no idea how much time the professor spent working individually with students who were having difficulties; she was actually quite patient with pupils who seemed to be making a genuine effort, sometimes even patting their shoulders if they grew discouraged and smiling when they did well.

Those who didn't try, however, or who hadn't practiced their assignments, were treated to what were obviously sharp words and a cold blast of professorial displeasure. "Out. You have wasted my time," Hermione once saw her bark at a trembling third-year who plainly had spent very little time preparing for a tutorial on transfiguring stones into socks. The professor's eyes continued to snap with anger after the student had hurried away, and she even Vanished his ill-transformed handiwork in a flash of fire.

Hermione thought she understood. It wasn't the student's poor work that so annoyed her. It was the wasted opportunity. The chance to learn something -- lost.

---///---

Once she had seen Professor Grubbly-Plank in the office, but if she had expected the two women to engage in secret snogging behind the closed door, she would have been disappointed. McGonagall actually sat quite formally at her desk, looking tight-lipped and worried as she handed Grubbly-Plank a parchment marked with the Ministry seal.

It must have been something from High Inquistor Umbridge, Hermione guessed, because Grubbly-Plank looked worried, too, and strode behind the desk to put one hand comfortingly on McGonagall's shoulder and the other angrily on her own hip. McGonagall smiled up at her briefly, but neither woman could conceal her concern, and Hermione closed the Map rather than continue to look at their troubled faces.

---///---

Once it was Dolores Umbridge herself who came to McGonagall's study, fluttering her little hands and touching her fingers daintily to her hair bow and to the ruffle at her neck as she simpered. And talked.

McGonagall grew whiter and stiffer with each word, until she could easily have passed for any of the statues in the corridors. Then she stood, and just as severely as if Umbridge had been an unmotivated student, pointed to the door and said, "Out."

There was a pause as the Defence professor's face turned redder and redder. She began speaking rapidly, stabbing her stubby finger in McGonagall's direction and finally -- unbelievably -- drawing her wand.

Hermione gasped and for a mad moment thought of trying to run to the office before any curses could be hurled. But she needn't have worried. McGonagall had her wand out and pointed towards Umbridge's throat before the other woman had fully disentangled hers from her pink ruffled sleeve.

They both stood unblinking for interminable moments; then Umbridge, glaring, spat a few more furious words before turning on her heel and stomping out, slamming the door behind her.

But it was a long time before McGonagall lowered her wand.

---///---

The professor's office, though, couldn't completely satisfy Hermione's cravings, and sooner or later, trying to ignore the fact that her pounding heart and sweaty palms came as much from arousal as nervousness, she would hide herself in the prefects' bathroom or a curtained window seat and let the enchanted Map lead her to her teacher's rooms.

In later years, after the war, she would be unable to remember exactly how many times she had visited McGonagall in secret, how many times she had drawn her light across the parchment to watch the surface of the Map swirl like silver memories in a pensieve before it cleared and invited her in.

What she did recall were the scenes, vivid and fragmented as dreams, that would often play on the screen of her memory like some sort of enchanted Muggle cinema.

There was the night McGonagall and Grubbly-Plank had fought, and the night McGonagall was hit by four Stunners.

There was the night the professors made love, and Hermione, breathless with guilt and need, had finally let herself watch.

And there was the night Dumbledore died.

---///---

Life had rules. And one of these rules was that the breaking of rules should have consequences.

So Hermione firmly believed. Even when the breaking of rules was necessary or justified, there should be consequences, and she knew that the watches she set on Professor McGonagall were _not_ justified.

But they _were_ necessary. For Hermione herself, at any rate, they had become essential, the one thing that could ease the pressures of OWLs, and the need to be a friend to Ron and Harry, and the fear that was now a constant companion. Fear of Umbridge, fear of what was to come. The fear -- no, the certainty -- that it wouldn't be Dumbledore or the Ministry or an adult witch or wizard who would save them from Voldemort and his darkness.

If it would be anyone, it would be Harry. And Ron and Ginny and probably even Neville. And of course, Hermione herself.

She would do it. She would do whatever it took: she thought she knew herself well enough to know that she would face what had to be faced with as much courage as she could muster, and, ideally, with the forethought that many Gryffindors, as much as she hated to admit it, often seemed to consider unimportant.

But she wasn't Harry, driven as he was by some deep, wordless need always to act on his own. Hermione valued guidance, the reassuring sense of following and furthering paths already trod, the comfort of knowing that when the time came to make completely new paths, one did so steadied by the weight of lessons learnt, knowledge gained, wisdom won.

This guidance was hers for the earning -- all she had to do was learn to read the texts.

Hogwarts offered texts galore, and not just in the library. Hermione sometimes felt as if she had not stopped reading the magical world since the day she'd first seen the emerald-green ink on the envelope of her invitation to the school. Her reading was a stupendous feast, as endlessly-renewing as the refilling plates of the Great Hall, and she eagerly read whatever she found, from books to experiences to people. So far, she'd failed only with tea leaves.

In some ways the people were the best books of all: you never had to turn that last page, for there was something new to be read in them forever.

Not that all these human texts were as easy to understand as others, of course. Dumbledore, for instance, was like a scroll in an unfamiliar language, undeciphered and undecipherable, a code beyond her breaking. Ron's pages were still too blank; the quill of his experience had not yet bitten deeply enough into the parchment.

Harry's pages were too inky and scribbled, written on by too many people trying to tell his story as they would have it told. And although the thought came with a twinge of disloyalty, she sometimes thought that perhaps Professor Snape had words that she would find interesting to read. But so far his leaves were too dark; she hadn't found the sort of light that might make them legible to her.

But McGonagall. . .

_She_ was a book whose pages fell open at Hermione's touch; Hermione felt almost as if she could see beyond the words and letters to the fibres of the parchment itself. In McGonagall, somehow, she could read the story of herself.

And so she gradually came to think of her Map not as the Marauders' Map at all, a piece of magic made by dubious means for dubious ends, but as another form of library book, one that she opened not by turning a cover but with the light of her wand, one that she read not through words but through a clear window that let her see as in a glass, brightly.

Nevertheless. . . This reading might now be as necessary to her as magic, but it still involved breaking rules. It was like sneaking a book from the Restricted Section without permission, and you never knew when you opened one of those whether it was going to start screaming. Or strike you blind.

Because, as Hermione knew, life had rules. And one of those rules was that breaking rules had consequences.

---///---

The consequences of Hermione's spying weren't as noisy as being discovered out of bounds by Peeves, or as heart-stopping as being crept up on by Snape or as destructive as the corrosive effect of Dolores Umbridge.

But they were consequences nonetheless: that is, if one could count as a consequence the fact that once one saw certain things or read certain things, nothing else was ever the same again.

And Hermione thought, on the whole, that one _could_ count it.

---///---

**December, 1995 -- Hogwarts, Year Five**

Whenever Hermione thought about the night McGonagall and Grubbly-Plank fought, it was their anger she pictured first. As often happened with powerful witches and wizards, their magic increased as their emotions did, and Hermione wouldn't have been surprised if they had spontaneously set objects afire through the sheer force of their rage -- she'd read of such things happening.

What they were arguing about, Hermione never knew, but the fight had begun by the time Parvati and Lavender had fallen asleep, and she had felt safe lighting her wand behind her bed curtains. She often sat behind her curtains to use the Map now; it wasn't always possible to sneak out after curfew, and she had discovered that, so entrenched was her own reputation for endless swotting, neither of the other girls paid any attention when she "studied" in her bed late at night.

This time, the Map window had opened on the spectacle of Grubbly-Plank, her iron-grey hair standing on end and her dressing gown flapping open with every step, storming back and forth in front of the sitting-room sofa. There McGonagall sat, straight-backed and thin-lipped, wearing an expression that Hermione thought her lover must have found infuriating: dismissive and disdainful, as if the woman pacing before her were a particularly objectionable species of magical vermin.

Grubbly-Plank finally stopped, planted her fists on her hips, and fired off several angry comments, her mouth twisting. If she'd had her wand out, Hermione thought, she would have been casting curses.

A tense moment passed; then McGonagall waved a derisive hand and stalked into the bedroom. Grubbly-Plank, still speaking, still raging, followed her.

By the time the Map enchantment also shifted Hermione to the other room, the two women were standing on opposite sides of the bed, its wide, deep-green expanse suggesting the gulf between them.

To Hermione, they seemed like an old-fashioned Muggle tableau, one of those living pictures designed to illustrate an emotion of biblical scope and power: "wrath" or "gall." Grubbly-Plank, her jaw jutting forward pugnaciously, glared like a Gorgon, while McGonagall, her hair loose and wild over her shoulders, looked rather frighteningly like an older version of Bellatrix Lestrange, all knife-edged cheekbones and fierce eyes.

The tableau broke as McGonagall moved forward abruptly, spitting out a terse sentence that Hermione was glad she couldn't understand. But whatever she said was brutal: Grubbly-Plank pulled back as if physically struck and stood for a moment with her mouth open; then she jammed her hands furiously into her hair, making it stand out even more.

But suddenly both women looked towards the sitting room, their faces startled. "Answer it," snapped Grubbly-Plank, her lips forming the words clearly. McGonagall said something that looked like "damnation" and came round the bed to snatch her tartan dressing gown from the armchair. With a wave of her wand, she magicked her hair into its bun and transfigured a nearby book into the particularly ugly hairnet she always wore when summoned to the common room after hours. Shoving her spectacles crookedly onto her nose, she strode out without another word.

Behind her, her lover punched the air in fury.

---///---

Hermione was surprised to find herself shivering a bit when she charmed the Map clean. She knew she had only herself to blame, but this wasn't a McGonagall she wanted to see. She didn't like this contemptuous, scornful Minerva, this brittle stranger who was making _Professor_ McGonagall -- _Hermione_'s McGonagall -- seem unreal, as manufactured and untrue as the hair-netted maidenly lady who had just left to perform her professorial role in public.

Later in the night, Hermione dreamt that the professor came to the girls' wing of the dormitory to rouse Ginny Weasley and take her away. Only the next day did she learn that it was true. Parvati told her that Ginny's father had been injured, that Harry Potter had somehow known about it, that Neville Longbottom had fetched Professor McGonagall from her rooms after Harry had woke screaming.

She learnt that the world and its horrors went on while you were looking the other way, sitting in the shadowy grey light of dawn behind your bedcurtains, checking your Map once more, letting yourself stupidly think that everything was all right again just because you saw McGonagall and Grubbly-Plank back together, asleep in each other's arms.

---///---

**June, 1996 -- Astronomy OWL, Year Five**

In years to come, it seemed to Hermione as if she had spent most of her fifth year at Hogwarts observing important events from afar or above or below. On tiptoe from behind what seemed like half the school, she'd viewed the sacking of Trelawney. From the floor of the Department of Mysteries, barely conscious, she'd watched an injured Neville struggle to save her from Death Eaters. Through a magic map window, she'd looked down on Professor McGonagall's life.

And, from atop the Astronomy Tower, she'd watched what she had been sure was McGonagall's death.

She'd been observing openly that time, along with all her fellow OWL examinees, when the professor was knocked backward by four Stunners as she tried to prevent Umbridge from arresting Hagrid. The four jets of light had moved almost lazily across the black night before striking the professor, surrounding her in a harsh red haze before she fell, and all was dark again.

Hermione never quite remembered how she managed to get down from the Astronomy Tower or how she kept from screaming in fury at Harry and the others, who seemed far more concerned about where Hagrid might spend the night than whether McGonagall lived or died. No one seemed to know anything specific about how she was, not even Professor Flitwick, who turned Hermione away kindly but firmly when she tried to visit the hospital wing.

"I'm sure the professor will be just fine," he said. "Madam Pomfrey is an excellent healer, my dear, have no fear about that." But he couldn't completely conceal the fear in his own eyes, and Hermione felt almost as if she had been Stunned herself.

Wretched, she trailed back to the Gryffindor common room. Sleep was out of the question, and eventually she found herself sitting alone and chilled in front of the dying fire, staring at the Marauders' Map, taking what small comfort she could from the continued presence in the hospital ward of a black dot labelled "M. McGonagall."

Finally, close to dawn, a dot appeared in the professor's bedroom, this one labelled "W. Grubbly-Pla," and Hermione was soon activating the Map and looking down at the former Magical Creatures teacher as she wanded things -- clothes, books, small bottles -- into a carpet bag on the bed.

Then, in the middle of Summoning McGonagall's tartan dressing gown from the window seat, Grubbly-Plank suddenly sat down heavily against the open bag and put her face in her hands.

The dressing gown fell unheeded to the floor.


	6. Chapter 6: 1996 to 1998

**Chapter Five**

**1996-1997 -- Hogwarts, Sixth Year**

---///---

**October, 1996**

They were at it again. Ron and Lavender Brown. Kissing and fondling. In the common room. Near the Quidditch pitch. Even in the dungeons. Once it was only Dean Thomas's urgently-hissed "McGonagall!" that stopped them mid-grope outside the Transfiguration classroom. The professor's face was impassive when she came round the corner, but as she closed the door, Hermione would have sworn she was trying not to laugh.

Hermione felt sad, even angry, at the loss of Ron's attention; it made her feel hollow and cast-out, so that she could barely be near him without snapping. And yet she knew she had nothing to complain about: she hadn't exactly been paying a great deal of attention to him in the past months, and it wasn't as if _she_ wanted to be in Lavender's shoes. Not really. Oh, most of their classmates assumed that she had romantic feelings for Ron, as if males and females could never be just friends. And she liked Ron, of course she did; no one could go through the things they'd gone through without being close.

But what she wanted was not Lavender's place in Ron's arms: what she wanted was the ease of their relationship, the seeming effortlessness of the way they'd slid into approved boy-girl love. Yes, people laughed at them -- they really _did_ behave absurdly -- but no one had even a moment's pause about the appropriateness of it all. It was just hormones, they said indulgently, even as they chuckled; exactly what you'd expect when boys finally start to notice girls.

And that was the way it worked: boys noticed girls, and girls noticed boys, and they were all young together, girls and boys pairing off, just the way they were supposed to, even Harry and Ginny now, and it all seemed so unfairly simple for them.

While for Hermione, nothing was simple at all.

---///---

And it seemed to get worse.

"I'm really sorry, Hermione, I mean, I know you liked him and everything," a flustered Lavender said one night in the girls' dormitory.

The second-last thing Hermione wanted was pity. The very last thing was pity from Lavender Brown. So she feigned ignorance. "What are you talking about?"

"About Ron. You know, about me and Won-won. I can't help it if he fancies me, can I? Well, can I?" Lavender was looking at her appealingly, and over her shoulder, Hermione could see Parvati rolling her eyes. "Say you forgive me? Please?" Lavender begged.

"There's nothing to forgive. Ron and I are friends, that's all," Hermione said, aware that this dialogue sounded like something out of a silly novel. "I'm glad he likes you, I want him to be happy."

Why use just one ridiculous cliché, she thought rather savagely, when there were so many to choose from?

"Oh," said Lavender a little uncertainly; this response clearly wasn't what she'd expected. "Well, that's good, then. I feel so much better. I mean, you're my friend, and I don't want you to be hurt. But this _thing_ Ronnie-kins and I have," she went on, flinging out her arms dramatically. "It's just taken us over. It's like Parvati said back in fourth year: you can't help who you like."

"No," agreed Hermione, a sudden vision of Professor McGonagall's sitting room coming unbidden into her mind, "you certainly can't."

---///---

A few minutes later, as she came back from cleaning her teeth, she heard Lavender say to Parvati, "Didn't that just break your heart? She's trying so hard to be brave."

Hermione ducked behind the door, ignoring the little voice whispering that spying was becoming rather too easy for her.

"Maybe she's telling the truth," Parvati was saying. "Maybe she really _doesn't_ like Ron that way."

"Of course she does. Everyone knows it."

"How?" demanded Parvati. "Maybe she likes girls, did you ever consider that? We used to think she fancied McGonagall, remember?"

"That was years ago. Just kid stuff. Hero-worship or whatever. Like you and me liking Trelawney. And I mean, come _on_. Who would really fancy a teacher? Especially McGonagall. That's just disgusting."

"The way fancying Firenze is disgusting, you mean?" Hermione was glad Parvati had made this point; it saved _her_ having to do it.

Lavender giggled and climbed into her bed. "Well, _he's_ sexy. McGonagall is. . ."

"Shhh," said Parvati. "Hermione will be back soon."

There were sounds of beds creaking, and then Lavender said, with an air of finality, "Besides. Hermione's not the type who likes girls. She's too much like a girl herself, and lezzies are more like. . .well, like Madam Hooch. And Professor Grubbly-Plank."

Parvati snorted, and after a moment, Hermione made a little show of coming noisily through the door. The others had already closed their curtains, and they murmured indistinguishable responses to her "goodnight."

---///---

Once behind her own curtains, Hermione wondered. _Did_ she like girls? When she tried to imagine herself kissing or touching any of the girls she liked -- Ginny, Parvati, Susan Bones -- the pictures wouldn't take shape in her mind. When she thought about love and romance and sex, she didn't think in terms of preferring "boys" or "girls." Not in a general sense. Her fantasies didn't involve "women"; they just involved one particular woman. So she didn't know if she liked "girls". . .or if she just liked Minerva.

Finally, frustrated, she took out the Map as usual. She'd been without it for the entire summer; Harry had taken it home with him, of course. She'd told herself that being without the Map for a couple of months would be good for her, that it would break her of this. . .addiction to spying. It was voyeurism, it was sick, and she was determined to stop it.

And in fact, in the early part of the term, she'd succeeded in not activating the Map as often as she used to; sometimes she would leave it untouched in her bag for a week or more. She felt relieved: the whole situation had worried her, and she was glad to learn that she had more control over her desires than she had feared.

But she also missed McGonagall dreadfully, no matter that she saw her in class or in the Great Hall daily. It wasn't the same, not now that she understood so clearly that the "Professor" was only one part of the person. She didn't want that other story to end; there were too many chapters still to read.

So whenever the need became too great, she would (casually, she hoped) say to Harry, "I thought maybe I'd go to the library early. . ." and he would answer absently, sometimes without even looking up from his broom or his homework: "you want the Map, then?" And hand it to her.

Soon she was using the Map as often as ever. Sometimes she didn't wait for the dark watches of the night, but checked the Map window in the afternoons or on weekend mornings, too, hungry to know who "Minerva" might be when she wasn't being a professor or a deputy headmistress or a Head of House. Or a lover.

Occasionally on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, McGonagall would appear to be nowhere in the castle; Hermione guessed that she must be staying with Professor Grubbly-Plank, who obviously lived somewhere off the Hogwarts grounds. Now that Hagrid was back teaching Care of Magical Creatures full-time, Hermione saw the other witch only rarely and then only in McGonagall's rooms. She assumed they traveled back and forth by Floo; she knew that the black ceramic jar on the sitting-room mantle contained Floo powder.

On those Sunday mornings that found McGonagall in her rooms, Grubbly-Plank was sometimes with her and sometimes not, but in either case, those hours were leisurely ones for the professor. She'd most often sit curled in a corner of the sofa, reading and drinking tea, her hair unbound, until time for lunch.

One Saturday evening, Hermione unfolded the Map to find the professor's sitting room crowded with black dots, their tiny printed names so overlapped that they couldn't be read. Opening the Map window revealed Professors McGonagall, Grubbly-Plank, Sprout, and Sinistra seated around a large wooden table that they had evidently expanded the room to accommodate. They were playing some elaborate magical card game that involved cards floating through the air to lie in complicated, multi-levelled patterns in front of the different players.

Bottles of firewhisky and wine appeared periodically to refill each professor's glass, until finally the game appeared to be won by Sprout and Grubbly-Plank. Professor Sprout beamed and waved her winning hand, and then, with no warning that Hermione could see, suddenly fell asleep, her head dropping onto the table and scattering the cards.

The others didn't seem terribly startled by this event. Sinistra laughed, and McGonagall rolled her eyes more in amusement than annoyance as she went to the cabinet and retrieved a vial of what Hermione assumed was a sobriety potion. Soon Sprout, her face still flushed, was awake again and smiling; she and Professor Sinistra left soon afterward.

As the door closed, Hermione felt almost as if she had been there with them, accepted and welcomed.

---///---

**January, 1997 -- Hogwarts, Year Six**

And finally, there was the night she had promised herself would never come.

Hermione had been out in the grounds later than anyone else; she'd felt the need for darkness and solitude. A warming charm had taken care of the cold, and she'd walked around the lake until she could no longer see the castle lights or even Hagrid's hut. Until she finally felt alone enough.

But then, perversely, she felt oppressed by the silence and the black skies. What had been for a moment a comforting emptiness now became a space crowded with fears; she could almost see snake-red eyes gleaming at her from the reeds and Snape-like capes billowing in the shadows.

And after the fear came a sort of yearning. . .she wanted to be a first-year, worrying about nothing more serious than the House Cup. She wanted Dumbledore to be whole again. She wanted someone to hold her the way Professor McGonagall held Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. She wanted Harry to be happy and Ron to be her friend once more. She wanted the war gone and the threats gone and the terror gone, she wanted to love someone, to fuck someone, to feel hot and open and breathless. She wanted to be assured everything would be all right, she wanted. . .

She wanted.

---///---

It was late when she headed back, and she barely made it to the castle steps before the doors were to be locked for the night. Filch was actually making his way across the entrance hall, key in hand and Mrs Norris at heel, when Hermione slipped inside.

"Thirty seconds more, and you'd have been spending the night in the forest, missy," he growled, almost palpably disappointed that she wasn't. "Don't think I'd be standing here waiting for you, not even if I was to see you comin' across the lawn." He twisted the huge, ancient key viciously in the lock. "You know the rules. I got better things to do than hang about waitin' for kids what can't be bothered to. . ."

"That will be all, Mr Filch, thank you." Professor McGonagall stepped briskly out from the direction of the staff room, nodding to Hermione as she walked. "I'll see to the wards." When Filch showed no sign of moving, she added sharply, "Feel free to get back to your 'better things' now, Argus."

He stared at them both for moment before muttering "aye" and slouching off.

McGonagall transferred her sharp look to Hermione. "It's not a very pleasant evening to be outdoors, Miss Granger. Is anything wrong?"

"No, Professor, I just needed some air," Hermione replied and wasn't surprised when McGonagall looked sceptical; people had probably used that same lame excuse when she herself had been a student. But then she obviously decided to give Hermione the benefit of the doubt.

"Indeed," she said, with a brief smile. "Useful element, air. I daresay you'll find quite a bit of it in the common room."

Hermione felt her breath catch as it always did when McGonagall smiled at her. She would have liked to say something interesting or clever in response, but her mind went stupidly blank. She knew the professor was waiting to set the wards, so she said hurriedly, inadequately, "Yes, Professor. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Miss Granger."

---///---

The first sight that greeted her eyes as she stepped through the portrait hole was Ron. Kissing Lavender in an armchair before the fire.

It suddenly seemed too silly for words, this ridiculous display of hormones, this. . .this _chemical_ reaction passing itself off as love or even desire, and before she could stop herself, Hermione snapped, "Since when have we had to warm the common room with pathetic teenage lust? I thought that's what the fires were for."

Ron let Lavender slide to the floor with a thump, where she promptly burst into tears. Seamus and Dean gave shouts of laughter that only increased when Ron, flushed to the tips of his ears, snarled, "You lot think that's funny, do you? Yeah, it's funny. . .as a crutch."

Stepping over Lavender, he stormed off to the boys' staircase. When it became clear that he wasn't going to return, Lavender's sniffs turned to howls, and she rushed up the girls' staircase in her turn.

Dean and Seamus collapsed in further hilarity, and Harry looked at Hermione helplessly. "Did you really have to. . .?"

"Yes!" she shouted. "Yes, I did!"

It felt good to yell at Harry and good to yank her satchel out from under the propped-up textbook of a wide-eyed third-year and good to slam the portrait as she clambered out, ignoring the Fat Lady's shrieks of outrage. It felt good to run pounding through the corridors and not give a damn whether Peeves showed up.

Even when she finally stood, overheated and panting, in the prefects' bathroom, she still felt furious with Ron.

What friend wouldn't be, the way he was making himself look ludicrous with Lavender in front of the entire school? Yes, she had made fun of him, but she was trying to make him see reason, she was trying to _help_ him, for Merlin's sake -- the way you would help anyone you had known since you were eleven and loved the way you'd love a brother, no matter how exasperating he could be. She couldn't stand by and let him demean himself the way he had been.

And then Harry. . .why did he have to keep trying to get her to be quiet, as if she ought to ignore Ron's bad behaviour just to make things easier for everyone else? She. . .

God, she felt like an idiot. Suddenly exhausted, Hermione slumped down at the edge of the bathing pool and rubbed her hands over her face. She had just behaved like a spoiled child having a tantrum, and now if the entire House thought she was jealous of Lavender and madly in love with Ron, she had only herself to blame.

She just wanted things to be easy with Ron, the way they used to be, when being his friend had meant long evenings of comfortable banter and unspoken understanding. She still trusted him more than anyone except maybe Harry and Professor McGonagall, but now she felt awkward in his presence, and it wasn't just because of Lavender. She and Ron had always felt a spark of. . .something for each other, but neither of them had known what to do with it, and now that it was too late -- well, she was relieved and sorry in equal parts.

But right now, the sorrow was uppermost. Even just a year ago, things -- Life -- had been simpler with Ron. And she missed both that and him.

Stiffly, feeling as if she'd climbed a steep cliff, Hermione turned on the taps and let steaming pastel bubbles fill the tub as she fished in her bag for Harry's Map. She would sit and soak and empty her mind, she told herself doggedly. She'd do like that woman in that old Muggle romance and think about everything tomorrow.

Tonight, she just wanted to lose herself in someone else's life.

---///---

They were on the sitting room sofa, McGonagall in her usual position at the end nearest the fire, her legs curled beneath her and a book in one hand. Grubbly-Plank lay stretched out, her head in McGonagall's lap, smoking her pipe. She must have charmed the smoke to disappear completely, because the air was clear. Several quiet minutes passed, the stillness broken only by the turning of charmed pages and by McGonagall's fingers absently massaging her lover's shoulder.

Watching them made Hermione feel calmer; they seemed so comfortable, so _adult_, their relationship untroubled by hormonal angst and lust. They had their problems, of course; Hermione hadn't forgotten last year's bitter argument or McGonagall's frightening injury. No one's life was perfect, she knew that, particularly not now, with the danger of Voldemort constantly threatening.

Yet she couldn't help but think that it all came easier to them, somehow; life wouldn't be so difficult when you were as old as the professors. Well, they were only middle-aged for witches, but still, they'd had years of experience; they would know how to cope. Their lives might not be as passionate as they'd once been -- about that, she wasn't sure. But they _couldn't_ be as painful. They just couldn't be.

The pipe in Grubbly-Plank's hand slipped to the floor, and for a moment, Hermione thought the professor must have fallen asleep. But then she reached up to tug the book from McGonagall's grasp and to draw the other woman's head down to hers.

And then they were kissing, lightly at first and then deeply, forcefully, and it wasn't like Ron and Lavender at all. It was slow and practiced and possessive. And real.

Hermione had sworn to herself that no matter what, she would never watch the professors. . .be intimate; that was one line she would not cross. But now, as Grubbly-Plank stood and pulled McGonagall up from the sofa, she made no move to close the Map window.

She wanted to see them, she wanted to _know_, and if it meant she was twisted and wrong, then so be it.

---///---

As much as she had once wanted to be introduced to sex by a woman, she had never actually thought much about the mechanics of it -- about what sex between women might be like. There were books that could have told her, of course, but for once in her life, she hadn't wanted to read them. She hadn't wanted clinical language or technical description; she hadn't wanted some discussion of "women" in the abstract.

She had wanted only the heat and power of her own imagination, because what she felt wasn't about _women_, it was about herself and _one_ woman. So her ideas remained jumbled and indistinct: when she thought about sex between women, she had assumed it would be tender and soft and full of whispered endearments. She had never expected ferocity and raw need.

But from the moment Grubbly-Plank pushed McGonagall back onto the bed and Banished her robes, there was nothing soft or tender about them. Grubbly-Plank's touch was alternately rough and teasing; she used her fingers, two and three at a time, letting McGonagall arch into her thrusting hand before pulling away to pin her lover's wrists with a spell and then tantalize with just the tip of her tongue until Minerva was gasping and twisting beneath her. Even their kisses seemed bruising, and their teeth left tiny marks on each other's necks and breasts.

Hermione found that she couldn't, in the end, watch everything; she felt so intensely aroused and ashamed at once that she frequently closed her eyes, so that her memories of the experience were like a series of still photographs. Stark images stayed with her for years: Professor McGonagall, her head flung back, her long dark hair wrapped in her lover's fist, her fingers clutching the sheets; Grubbly-Plank standing braced against the edge of the bed, her legs open, her shoulders white in the moonlight, McGonagall kneeling before her.

---///---

The bath had cooled by the time Hermione's pulse slowed, and she came back to her surroundings with a sense of having been underwater for hours, the way she'd felt after her time among the merpeople during the Tournament.

She renewed the waterproofing charm on the Map with hands that were shaking slightly, partly from cold and partly from the arousal that she was determined to ignore. She was not going to touch herself tonight; she could at least offer the professors the slight atonement of self-denial.

The two of them had gone to bed by the time Hermione returned, hesitantly, to the Map window, and there was no absence of tenderness now as they held each other and kissed softly, McGonagall caressing her lover's cheek while Grubbly-Plank drew the duvet around them. They were spooned together when they finally fell asleep, and Hermione felt moved to tears.

---///---

**June, 1997 -- Hogwarts, Year Six**

Somehow she couldn't bring herself to activate the Map after that night. As the year and the world darkened, she didn't want to disturb that final picture of peace.

And she no longer wanted to spend so much time alone; she began to feel a pressing need to be with her friends as much as she could, even Ron. Perhaps especially Ron: his relationship with Lavender had ended, and he seemed almost back to normal. The time she spent with him now was almost easy again, or would have been had the threat of war not been so near. Everything seemed so temporary, so precarious; even Draco Malfoy, as worried as she was about what he might be plotting, was so obviously miserable that she couldn't help feeling a twinge of pity for him.

But on the dreadful night that Dumbledore died, when she sat awake for hours in the common room, she found that she needed the Map again -- not to open its window, but just to keep track of things. To keep track of McGonagall. The professor was all over the school during much of the night, most of the time surrounded by so many other black dots that Hermione had a hard time distinguishing her name. But finally, near dawn, when the castle at last seemed quiet, she saw the dot labelled "M. McGonagall" make its solitary way along the Gryffindor corridor towards the rooms where the "W. Grubbly-Pla" dot had been motionless for hours.

Hermione activated the window then and looked once more into the familiar sitting room as Grubbly-Plank rose from the chair by the empty grate and took Professor McGonagall into her arms. They were still standing there, holding tightly together, when Hermione folded the Map and tucked it into Harry's left-behind satchel.

---///---

**1997-1998 -- The Seventh Year That Wasn't**

During the months she and Ron and Harry spent on the run after the Ministry fell to Voldemort, Hermione tried, once, to use the Map; she needed, just briefly, the comfort of Hogwarts. And of McGonagall's face. She'd use it just this once, she told herself. Just to make sure that not _everything_ in the world had changed.

But the window charm didn't work.

---///---

Their return to Hogwarts, when it came, seemed both inevitable and totally unreal. She and Ron and Harry entered the castle secretly, passing through the Hog's Head pub and the Room of Requirement before sneaking out into the halls. If she tried, Hermione could almost convince herself that she was a first-year again, creeping through the corridors with the boys on some frightening but exciting adventure that she somehow, for all her terror at the time, had never really believed would end badly.

But Hogwarts itself seemed to know how different everything actually was; the very walls seemed to virbrate with tension, encasing and intensifying the fear and expectancy that lay thick on the air. This night would see the climax of the war with Voldemort; they all knew it, although no one said so aloud. It was more than likely, Hermione realised, that she would not be alive come morning, and such had been the strain of the last years that the thought was almost a relief.

Yet when Ron caught her hand, his face alight with purpose, and said, "Come with me!" she felt the rush again, that peculiar mix of dread and thrill that meant battle and action, a feeling that gave her a sense of being alive that nothing else could match. As she followed Ron to the Chamber of Secrets, as they scooped up basilisk venom to use against the Horcruxes, she thought she had never felt closer to anyone in her life. When his triumphant eyes met hers, she felt confident for the first time that the forces of light could prevail.

And when, in the heat of battle, he had pulled her to him and kissed her, she knew that -- if they survived and if he wanted her -- she would take the solution he offered. She would take his way out of her confusions and questions; she would take his sensible reality over her foolish dreams of something that could never be, something that she suspected she wanted only within the security of fantasy anyway.

He would be safe, he would be simple, he would be Ron, the blank pages of his life now filled in with the story of a stalwart, good man, a loyal friend, a brave comrade-in-arms. And she would be good to him, for hadn't she always loved him?

She kissed him back as curses and death swirled around them.


	7. Chapter 7: After Years, Part I

**A/N --** A common convention of Minerva/Hermione stories has Hermione returning to teach at Hogwarts; often, Neville is the one who encourages her to do so. This chapter is my version of that trope.

---///---

**Chapter Six**

**1998-2005 -- After-Years, Part I**

**1998-2001**

The War was over. The victory had come at a high cost for them all, but it was a victory all the same. Their side had prevailed -- _Harry_ had prevailed. The dark forces had been vanquished, and if many people had private doubts that the wizarding world could really have healed itself as quickly as it seemed to, no one showed the bad form of saying so.

To all the students of Hermione's year, the Hogwarts Board of Governors offered an accelerated NEWT course to be done at the school, if one chose, or independently, by owl-correspondence. Hermione stayed at home with her recovered parents, trying to rebuild their relationship as she studied her lessons and spent the weekends with Harry and the Weasleys.

At the Burrow, she felt enfolded in the comfortable familiarity and deep understanding that she always associated with Ron and his family. She and Ron became almost inseparable, and if she sometimes let her mind travel elsewhere when his body covered hers in the night, she told herself that fantasy was fantasy. Her reality was here, in this beloved, ramshackle house, warm and safe and Burrowed deep.

In March, nine months after the war ended, she and several dozen people from her Hogwarts year reported to the Ministry for a special administration of the NEWT exams, and she couldn't pretend to be surprised when she achieved a stellar passing record. Her pulse quickened a bit when she received a letter of congratulation from Headmistress McGonagall, who had handled the Transfiguration correspondence-course herself despite the enormous job of rebuilding Hogwarts. But when she saw that Harry and Ron received the same letter, Hermione smiled at her own silliness. She was grown now, no schoolgirl any longer, and she knew that the time had come to put away childish things. The chapter of her life that was Hogwarts and Minerva was closed.

And when, at Christmas two years later, Ron asked if she would marry him, she said yes.

---///---

**April, 2005**

Hermione married Ron because she loved him and felt she needed him in her life and because she wanted children and she loved his family and because he was kind, in his way, and brave, and proud of her, and because she thought they could be happy together.

And -- although she didn't recognise this until much later -- she had married him because he didn't really understand her and didn't demand anything of her except companionship and very unadventurous sex and because he left her free to live within herself.

She began to have an inkling of this truth when the children didn't come. She was disappointed but not devastated; while she would have welcomed children, she soon realised that she could envision a satisfying life without them.

Yet as she thought about that satisfying life, it no longer seemed to include Ron. He himself was no more or less than he had always been, and she still loved him, of course, but without the ties that children would have provided, she found herself growing more and more apart from him. Children would have given them a future; as it was, she began to feel that they shared nothing now but a past. And however intense and bonding that past had been, it was. . .well, past.

Ron had done nothing to deserve her withdrawal, she admitted that freely. But she couldn't help herself. Sometimes entire weekends would pass without their exchanging more than a few words, and he grew so unhappy and wretched that she couldn't bear to look at him.

They finally agreed to spend some time apart, or rather, she proposed it, and he didn't fight her.

"You want a divorce, then, is that it?" he'd asked heavily. "It'll take awhile, you know what Ministry red tape is like. . ."

"Not a divorce, not necessarily. I. . .I just need some time. Or something." She knew she wasn't being clear, but for once she didn't have the words to explain; she didn't know herself how to account for this restlessness, this sense of being unanchored and adrift.

"Is it the baby thing? Because we can adopt one, Hermione, you know I'd be fine with that. . ."

"No, it's not about children, Ron. Truly. It's just. . ."

"You need some time," he said. She searched for derision in his tone, but found none. Just flatness. "Yeah, okay. Whatever. It's just . . .what do we do in the meantime?'

"We'll talk," she said vaguely. "We'll work things out. I hope."

"Yeah," he said again, and surprised her by hugging her. "So do I."

---///---

**June, 2005**

The owl looked cross when it banged on the window of her tiny flat on a hazy, hot Saturday afternoon. Hermione sighed. She hoped it wasn't Ginny and Harry asking her to dinner again. She knew they meant to be supportive, but she still felt awkward seeing them: their presence made Ron's absence loom so much larger.

But the parchment wasn't from Harry and Ginny. "I'll be in town just for the evening," it read. "Meet me at the Leaky for a pint at 8:00? Reply by this owl. Neville L."

Hermione grinned. Only Neville L. would ever think to include the "L." Taking up a quill, she scrawled, "See you then, Hermione G," and sent the owl winging back.

He was waiting at a back table when she arrived, his round face looking anxious until he spotted her. Anxiety was simply a natural state for Neville; no amount of success or heroism -- and he'd had plenty of both -- was going to change that, and Hermione couldn't make herself be sorry. Worry was part of Neville's charm.

"I heard about you and Ron. I'm sorry," he said simply, once he'd fetched their pints.

"Thanks, Neville. Things might still work out."

"Good." He didn't press for details (another of his charming traits), but merely patted her hand and changed the subject. "How's life at Ministry? Still working for house-elf rights?"

"Mostly. But the department covers magical creatures of all sorts, you know. Until I started there, I had no idea how many there were. But what about you, Neville? How was your first year as a Hogwarts professor?"

"Professor _trainee_," he corrected with a smile. "Professor Sprout didn't retire until the end of this term, you know. I was just her apprentice."

"Well? Did you like it?"

"I _loved_ it," said Neville solemnly. "A lot's changed since we were there, of course, and it'll be a little sad next year, without Pomona. But mostly, it's great. I hope I can stay till I'm as old as Dumbledore."

"You're making me feel nostalgic," Hermione said. "I know we were in mortal danger half the time we were there, but still, there's no place like Hogwarts. But it sounds as if all our old teachers are leaving."

"Not really. Flitwick is still there. Sinistra. Madam Hooch. They did get rid of Binns, but you have to admit, that should have happened years ago. Trelawney still lives in the castle, but she doesn't teach much anymore; says her 'Inner Eye' sees most clearly when she does individual tutorials with only the most gifted Divinations students."

Hermione laughed. "I suspect McGonagall had something to do with bringing the 'Inner Eye' to that particular conclusion."

Neville grinned. "Yes, well, Minerva can be quite the Slytherin when she needs to be. She'd never cast Sybill out or anything, but she's determined to keep up the teaching standards. She's a lot more strict about it than Dumbledore was. In a good way. I mean, face it. We should never have had teachers like Lockhart. Or. . ." and he looked at Hermione rather warily before finishing, "or Hagrid. No offense, you know I love Hagrid."

"It's all right. Really. I love him, too, but he _wasn't_ a very good teacher."

Neville nodded, relieved. "I think he's happy to be out of it, to tell you the truth. We've got Grubbly-Plank doing Care of Magical Creatures full-time now, you know. And she _is_ good."

"Yes, she's a sensible choice." Trying not to sound like Lavender Brown, who used to fish endlessly (and never very subtly) for information about her various love interests, Hermione added, "Grubbly-Plank and Professor McGonagall are friends, aren't they? I think I remember someone saying so. . ."

Neville nodded again. "Oh, they've known each other for years," he said, and if he was aware of any closer relationship between them, his voice didn't hint at it. "I think McGonagall was the one who recommended Willa to Dumbledore in the first place. Pomona was surprised that she agreed to join the staff permanently, though. She's known her for years, too -- Sprout has, I mean -- and evidently Grub always used to say that full-time teaching would drive her mad."

"Well, people's opinions can change," said Hermione, hoping she sounded properly casual. "I think teaching could be very rewarding. I'm glad _you're_ happy with it, Neville."

"Would you ever consider it? Teaching, I mean? Because, if you would. . . " He paused and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"What do you mean?"

"It's one of the reasons I wanted to see you tonight. We're going to need an interim Transfiguration professor next year. Milford applied for a year's leave of absence -- some sort of family thing, I don't know the details -- and the Board granted it. Professor McGonagall's going to place an ad in the _Prophet_ next week."

"Did she send you to ask me about it?"

"Minerva? No. I was going to suggest you to her, but then I thought I'd better check first to see if you'd be interested."

"Well, even if I were, I don't think I'm qualified, Neville. You were just saying how they've tightened the teaching requirements since the war, and I'm not certified. . ."

"You had one of the highest NEWT scores in the last twenty years. And you have plenty of practical experience; didn't you do a special transfig course with your Ministry training? They won't be as strict about official qualifications for just an interim year; I bet the Board would approve you."

"I'd have to get a leave from the Ministry. . ." Hermione made herself sound dubious, but she was rather frightened by how much the idea appealed to her. . .the chance to teach at Hogwarts.

And because she tried not to lie to herself when she could avoid it, she admitted that she wanted the chance to work with Professor McGonagall as an equal. As Minerva and Hermione, if that were possible -- not as teacher and student.

She harboured no romantic illusions about the professor; they would never have any sort of personal relationship -- Hermione didn't even think that's what she wanted -- and in any case, there was Ron. And there might still be the little matter of Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. Or "Grub," as she was apparently called. (_Grub?_)

No, Hermione had no illusions. But teaching at Hogwarts. . .

She became aware of a silence at her table. Neville was looking at her, a slight smirk on his face.

"I'm sorry. What were you saying, Neville?"

"You were thinking it over, weren't you?" he said, in laughing accusation. "I _knew_ you'd be interested."

"I am, actually."

"Then send McGonagall an owl before she puts the ad in. And keep me posted!" He lifted his glass. "Can I get you another?"

Hermione shook her head. "My round, I think."

They spent another pleasant hour or so in talk and memory, and on Monday, a carefully-worded parchment owled its way to Hogwarts.

---///---

**2005 -- Autumn Term**

Teaching was far more exhausting, challenging, and demanding than Hermione had ever dreamed. She seemed to do nothing but teach, plan to teach, or mark the results of teaching. She began to yearn for the days when all she'd had to do was _write_ the three-foot parchment homeworks; deciphering the illegible and often illiterate results had been someone else's problem.

"The marking, Neville," she said to him one evening in the staff room, where she was snatching a cup of tea and a few minutes' rest before beginning the next day's lesson plans. "How do you manage it? It never seems to end."

He was sympathetic. "It gets easier; really, it does. I'm finding that already. You should go see Professor Sprout; she gave me a lot of helpful tips last year. She'd like you to visit her, in fact; she asked me to ask you."

"She did?" Hermione was surprised; while she had always got along well with the herbology professor, they'd never been particularly close. But probably Sprout just wanted to be helpful.

And she could use the help, Hermione admitted to herself. She didn't like the sense of always being just one step ahead of the students; she wasn't used to feeling so out of her depth. She'd been thinking of talking to Professor Flitwick, but the retired Sprout would be better: Hermione didn't want to appear at all inadequate in front of even her kindliest current colleagues.

She also preferred not to take her questions to Professor McGonagall, even though the headmistress kept an eye on the younger professors and encouraged them to visit her with any difficulties. True, McGonagall maintained more of a professional distance from the faculty than Hermione's fantasies of intimate chats in the staffroom had led her to expect, but that was probably just the nature of the Head's position. In their rare private meetings, Minerva was never other than cordial to Hermione and, in fact, gave every evidence of being pleased to have her back. She would no doubt have been happy to answer any questions; she'd already offered to share her Transfiguration lesson plans.

Still. . .Hermione didn't want kind, professional mentoring from Headmistress McGonagall. She wanted personal conversations with Minerva about anything but school, and that was a silly, schoolgirl thing to want, and not possible.

"Yes," she said to Neville. "I'd like to see Professor Sprout."

---///---

Pomona Sprout had retired to the Lake District, to a vine-clad cottage that would have been a retirement cliché had it not so exactly suited her. Hermione and Neville Apparated there on the Sunday afternoon following their conversation in the staffroom.

They found the former professor in her garden, of course, her robes and cheek as smudged with potting soil as they had ever been during her teaching days.

"Oh, my, is it teatime already?" she asked, brushing off her hands as she moved to greet them. "The time just got away from me, dears. And I was going to have everything all ready for you, too!" She looked ruefully at her dusty knees and then laughed. "Well, this is what cleaning charms were invented for," she said cheerfully, casting a quick _scourgify_ over herself and ushering them into her tiny sitting room.

Despite Sprout's professed lack of preparation, it was only a short time before Hermione and Neville were seated in comfy chintz chairs, tea and scones in hand. Neville and his mentor gossiped about Hogwarts, about the wizarding world, about Gran Longbottom and (to Hermione's amazement) her new beau, talking with an ease and familiarity that Hermione could only envy. She found herself relaxing and gossiping as well, enjoying herself, and she was disappointed when the professor Banished the empty scone plates and said, "Now, then," in an unmistakable end-of-the-party tone.

But it turned out to be the end of the party only for Neville. "Neville, love, I know you'll be wanting to take some cuttings back with you for next month's lessons," Sprout said. "Just help yourself to whatever you fancy; you know the charm to reveal the greenhouse, don't you? Take your time; Hermione and I will find plenty to chat about while you're busy."

Neville accepted this obvious dismissal almost as if he'd been waiting for it. Hermione stared after him, puzzled, and then turned back to find Professor Sprout holding out a fresh cup of tea, an unexpectedly shrewd expression on her face.

Hermione had a sudden sense that she had been underestimating this woman for years. She'd never really looked beneath that benign, sweet exterior -- a mistake, she realised now. There was a reason, after all, that the Hufflepuffs had a badger as their mascot.

Her wariness must have shown on her face, because Sprout burst out laughing and patted her hand. "Now, now, I'm not as frightening as all that. But I _do_ want to ask you something, my dear. I'll tell you straight out that it's none of my business, so I won't be offended in the least if you tell me to, well. . . bugger off. All right?"

"Um. . .all right," Hermione agreed tentatively. Was Sprout going to lecture her about Ron?

"Good!" Sprout beamed. "Now here's the question: Did you come back to teach at Hogwarts because of Minerva McGonagall?"

Hermione tried not to let her surprise show too clearly. "Because of her? I'm not sure what you mean. She's the one who offered me a contract, so I suppose technically. . ."

"No, no. I mean, for personal reasons. Did you come back because you wanted to be near Minerva?"

"I. . .I don't. . ." Hermione had rarely felt at such a loss, and she had no idea how to respond.

"I'm sorry; I've been too abrupt, haven't I?" said Professor Sprout with concern. "Here. . .why don't I just explain a bit? Then if you want to say anything, you can, and if not, we'll just forget we had this little talk." Without really waiting for Hermione to respond, she settled back more comfortably in her chair and said, "I don't mean to embarrass you, Hermione, but when you were a student, I could tell that you. . .admired. . .Minerva a great deal.

"Oh, I know the signs, my dear," she said, waving off Hermione's questioning look. "And usually, such things are nothing to worry about. Just crushes, which I know is an awfully condescending term, given how real the feelings are, but they rarely last. Students become infatuated with teachers all the time; it's normal. And as I recall from my own student days" -- she dimpled suddenly -- "crushes can be quite fun, in their own anguished way."

"Did she know?" Hermione asked. She had no intention of denying Sprout's claim about her feelings; there were too many things she wanted to find out. "Did Professor McGonagall know, too?"

Sprout tilted her head. "Well, she certainly never said so, but that doesn't mean anything. I've known Minerva for forty years, and I count her as a dear friend, but a more private person you'll rarely meet. I've never known anyone better at concealing herself, and I say this as someone who also spent years working with Severus Snape. So all I can tell you is that Minerva never gave even the slightest hint that she knew of your feelings. But she's a teacher, don't forget, and a good one. She probably read the signs just as I did."

"Why are you. . .?"

"Why am I bringing this up now? Because you weren't like the other students with crushes, Hermione. You were different. You always were, in so many ways. Your infatuation burned away, like they all do, but I don't think your feelings did."

"I married Ron Weasley. . ." Hermione said, as if it were an answer.

But Sprout nodded as if she'd expected such a response. "I know, and I'm sure you loved him. Perhaps you still do. It's a complicated business, our emotions and desires. No easy labels for them. They're like _tentacula_ vines-- they just won't stay nicely in their boxes. You can love one person and want another at the same time."

Hermione was suddenly angry, though whether at herself or at Professor Sprout, she didn't know. She didn't want to be so transparent, so easily read, and she didn't want to have to explain things to this elderly witch with the kind, too-perceptive eyes -- she could barely explain things to herself.

But then her anger drained away as quickly as it had come, and she felt merely tired and helpless and very much like a student again. "I don't really know what I want," she admitted. "It was probably a mistake to come back to Hogwarts. I just wanted. . .I felt. . .I suppose I wasn't thinking clearly."

"Hearts and minds, my dear," said Sprout sympathetically. "Two different things, I'm afraid. And Minerva. . ."

". . .is involved with Professor Grubbly-Plank. I know," Hermione interrupted. There was no reason to let Professor Sprout think she was _totally_ clueless.

But Sprout's eyes widened almost comically. "You know about Minerva and Willa? How did you. . . ? Well, never mind. But I must say, you. . .I'm amazed. You must have added Legilimency to your many talents. Because Min keeps a rather tight rein on that information."

She sat lost in thought for a moment and then reached for Hermione's hand. "Forgive me. I've handled this very badly. Please understand, I'm not prying just for the sake of it, and I have no intention of offering you advice of any kind. I'm out of line enough as it is. But I know from Neville that you're having a difficult time of it right now. You're at a crossroads, he says, and he's worried about you. And I told him, Hermione Granger is a scholar; scholars always value knowledge. Maybe she'd appreciate some background. So you may consider me a living reference book, Miss Granger" -- she flashed the dimples again -- "one that's not quite dangerous enough for the Restricted Section."

She took Hermione's brief smile as permission to continue and said, "So. If you like, I'll tell you a few things that may or may not be helpful to you, and then we'll go find Mr Longbottom before he's too weighed-down with cuttings to be able to Apparate. What do you say?"

Hermione thought. Of course she wanted to learn whatever she could. Sprout was right: research was always a good idea, no matter how painful the things one learnt. Knowing was almost always better than not knowing. So she nodded, and Sprout began,

"First. You already know about Wilhelmina, so what you might want to know now is that she and Minerva seem to have parted ways. Romantically, I mean. I don't know what happened, but at least they still seem to be able to work together. Frankly, I think it was a mistake for Grub to join the staff permanently; she and Min always get along best when they have some distance between them. Some relationships are just like that. But for now, anyway, it's over."

"For now?"

Sprout sighed. "That's the second thing you need to know. They've spilt up before, twice that I know of, but they've always got back together. Rolanda thinks they will this time, too."

Hermione sat quietly for a moment, trying to reconcile all this new information. When she'd thought of McGonagall and Grubbly-Plank over the years, it was always as something apart, a relationship that existed only between the folds of a magic map, secret and isolated and somehow a story for her eyes alone. But of course it wasn't: it was these women's lives, with a full history and community and a reality far beyond what Hermione had ever granted it.

"Why did they have to keep it such a secret?" she asked finally. "Because of their careers, or. . ."

"Well," said Professor Sprout, "it's true that the wizarding world hasn't always been very accepting of two women together, or two men either, come to that, especially when they work with children. It's narrow-mindedness, of course, but there it is. So in the early days, yes, they had their careers to think of. And then in the Voldemort years, it was simply too dangerous to let your ties be known, especially for someone like Minerva, part of the Order and what-have-you.

"Plus, as I told you, Minerva is private. She's always been very discreet about her relationships, not that there have been many, that I know of, at any rate. She was with Willa when I joined the staff -- mid-1960s, that would have been. But then they broke up for the first time, and there was a woman from the Ministry."

Sprout stopped and was silent for so long that finally Hermione prompted, "What happened to her?"

"She died. Killed by Death Eaters in the first war. Min was in a bit of a state for a while after that, as you might imagine. Velinda, her name was. I only met her once or twice, but she reminded me of Grub -- brusque woman, with short hair, strong arms, that sort of thing. And. . .well, I suppose there's no harm in telling you, it was fifteen years ago at least: Min had a brief romance with Rolanda Hooch." Pomona gave a rather indelicate sniff. "But anyone could have told you _that_ wasn't going to last."

After another meditative pause, she finished, "And that's about it. When you think about it, you realise they're all of a type, Min's girls."

"Of a type? You mean. . .butch?" Hermione sometimes thought about such words late at night, when she lay sleepless and wondering about women and love.

Sprout chuckled. "Those Muggle terms always make me laugh. But they have their uses. Yes, I suppose. . .butch. No-nonsense, a little rough. Like Willa. With Minerva, everything always comes back to Wilhelmina."

Hermione thought she caught a slight wistfulness in Sprout's tone. "What about you, Professor?" she asked, curious. The unexpectedness and oddity of the whole conversation made her bold, so she went on, "do you have a 'crush' on Minerva, too?"

"Heavens, no." Pomona shook her head. "I love Min; we've been through too much together for me not to, but I've never been interested in women. I've had a lovely gentleman friend for many years now. He's quite the gardener, too," she added fondly, before draining the last of her tea and rising.

"That's really all I wanted to say to you, my dear. Now you know where things stand with Minerva, and that may help you, I hope, whatever you decide to do. Or not to do." Sprout Summoned her pointed hat from a hook near the door and plopped it on her head. "Shall we take a look at the greenhouse, then? It's really quite complete, not that I need all the plants I had at Hogwarts, of course. . ."

She headed into the garden, leaving Hermione to follow slowly.


	8. Chapter 8: After Years, Part II

**Chapter Seven**

**2005-2006 -- After-Years, Part II**

---///---

**October, 2005**

Weeks passed, and as Neville had promised, the teaching routine became easier. Yet there was always a great deal to do, and the work comforted Hermione. She'd changed her mind about what she'd told Professor Sprout: she was glad she'd returned to Hogwarts; she felt cocooned, tucked away from her real-life problems into a world she knew and loved and understood. She talked to Ron occasionally, even met him once at the Three Broomsticks for an afternoon that turned out to be quite pleasant; she was reminded how much she liked him, now that she wasn't living with him.

Ever since the visit to Professor Sprout, she'd felt closer to Neville, too, appreciating his wordless sympathy and his low-key friendship. But she could never bring herself to discuss Minerva with him, even though she was fairly certain he guessed at her feelings.

Not that Hermione was quite sure herself what her feelings were. She had moments, of course she did, of imagining herself living permanently at Hogwarts, becoming more and more indispensible to the headmistress, until one day, on a walk to Hogsmeade, perhaps, or at the end of a feast, after everyone else had left, Minerva would turn to her and confess that she'd long been attracted to her, but had not thought it appropriate. . .Or she'd imagine herself rescuing Minerva from danger, from vengeful ex-Death Eaters, maybe. . .or coming upon her, hurt and alone and needing help. . .

These fantasies inevitably left Hermione rather red-faced and rolling her eyes at herself, recognising her thoughts for the adolescent pipe-dreams they were: fun because they were so impossible that they'd never happen. She was safe.

She wasn't safe, though, from the occasional, more realistic vision of herself actually living with Minerva, spending evenings before the fire in the quiet sitting room, sharing brandy and talk of books, and then, later, heading together toward bed. They were compelling, these images. The life they depicted was plausible, and her mind returned to it like an oft-read novel, a comforting place to visit, a world where you knew the characters and the story and could write the ending you liked.

But still, the stories weren't real. And she didn't know if she wanted them to be. For now, fiction was enough.

---///---

She was alone in the staffroom one afternoon when the headmistress made one of her relatively rare visits there. Hermione had been getting a cup of tea from the charmed, always-fresh pot, and on impulse, she poured a second cup. "You take your tea black, don't you?" she asked, deciding to behave as if Minerva's sitting down for a cuppa was an assured thing.

"I wasn't. . ." McGonagall began, but then changed her mind. "Black, yes," she said, dropping into one of the armchairs. "Thank you. But give it a bit of a strengthening charm, if you don't mind. I think the pot is still set for Filius's brew, and he might as well just drink hot water."

Hermione grinned as she touched her wand to the cup and turned the perfectly-acceptable tea into something resembling tar. Everyone knew that Minerva preferred tea that could double as paint-remover.

They both sat quietly, sipping, and Hermione was suddenly assailed by a sense of time passing. It wasn't that Minerva seemed too much older than she had when Hermione had been a student. If anything, she almost seemed younger now, since Hermione's ideas about what constituted "old" had undergone something of a change since she'd been 12 or 13. Minerva was moving gracefully towards her witch's old age, having turned 80 two weeks before (with stern injunctions against "any sort of nonsense" like parties or cake). She was as vigorous as she'd ever been, her hair only slightly more silvered, her face only slightly more creased, but all the same, Hermione felt close to tears over the fragility of it all, the impermanence of the things she loved.

This was ridiculous, she thought, swallowing hard. Minerva was going to think she was an idiot.

"You don't come here often," she said, not realising until she'd spoken that she'd just given a reverse version of one of the most clichéd Muggle come-ons ever.

But if Minerva was familiar with it, she didn't let on. "No, I don't," she said. "Albus rarely did, either. No matter how congenial he was, people were always a mite tense when the headmaster dropped by. I've not forgotten that."

"He must have been lonely, I think," Hermione said. _As you must be_, she wanted to say, but she didn't dare risk so personal a comment.

Minerva didn't respond directly. "Albus was a difficult man to know," she said instead. "He was a difficult man in general."

Hermione was surprised; she'd always heard that McGonagall had been Dumbledore's most loyal supporter. "But I thought. . ."

"Oh, don't mistake me," Minerva said quickly. "He was a great man, for all his imperfections. A very great man. But difficult. And not always right or kind or willing to question himself. He couldn't be. If he had been, he couldn't have done what we so badly needed him to do."

Hermione sipped her tea in silence, not knowing quite what to say but not wanting to do anything that might end the conversation. Minerva had never spoken so openly to her before, not that she had really said anything very personal even now.

She settled for saying, "Professor Dumbledore made a lot of sacrifices."

"Yes, he did," Minerva nodded. "But in the end, he was not unhappy. He didn't think he had wasted his life. And that's as much as most of us can ask, perhaps.

"Unless," she continued, looking at Hermione thoughtfully, "we want to trade 'not unhappy' for 'happy.' Then everything becomes immeasurably more complicated." With a slight flick of her wrist, she sent her empty cup back to the counter and rose.

"Thank you for the tea, Hermione," she said, and was gone in a rustle of robes.

---///---

**December, 2005**

"Hermione? If you have a moment?"

Professor McGonagall stood in the doorway of the Transfiguration classroom. The final lesson of the day had ended, the students had long since trooped out, and Hermione was transforming a pile of lopsided vases back into the snails they had been when the class had begun.

"Of course," she said, dropping the last snail into the tank and wiping her hands. She wasn't surprised to see Minerva here. Unless it was something serious, the headmistress rarely summoned staff to her office, preferring to handle routine matters on less-intimidating ground.

"I'm hoping that you and Mr Longbottom will agree to accompany me to the Minister's Christmas party this year," Minerva said without further preamble. "I warn you, it's one of those tedious official functions, but a certain Hogwarts presence is expected, and I like to have the Ministry and Board members get to know the new staff. You may bring a guest if you like," she went on, diplomatically not naming Ron; she had not mentioned him so far this year.

"Will you and Neville bring guests?" Hermione asked. She didn't think she wanted to ask Ron, but she did want to know if Minvera planned to invite someone. . .like Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank.

But Minerva shook her head. "I can't answer for Neville, but I prefer to go alone. As I say, it's an official occasion, not a personal one. I'm afraid I'd have to abandon a guest to their own devices while I carried on endless conversations with people who are probably as uninterested in talking to me as I am to them."

Hermione laughed. "You make it sound like such fun; how could I say no?"

Minerva smiled in return. "Oh, no doubt I've made it out worse than it is, but I hate such things. I wouldn't subject you and Neville to it if I didn't think it would be useful for you to know something of the political dimension of being on the Hogwarts staff."

"But I'm only going to be here for this year," Hermione pointed out.

"Yes, well," said McGonagall. "Even so."

---///---

Neville looked dashing in his dress robes when he met Hermione in the Hogwarts entrance hall on the night of the reception. She'd dressed carefully, too, in a long rose-coloured gown, and felt a little silly at how much she was looking forward to this evening. Tedious official function or not, it was a party, and she hadn't been to a real one for a long time.

And she'd never been to one with Minerva.

McGonagall, when she arrived, looked every inch the Headmistress in a severe black robe covered by a sleeveless, open-fronted over-robe in silver brocade. A matching silver scarf was twisted around the cone of her tall hat, its ends trailing over the back brim. Her hair was still up, but arranged more softly than the usual tight bun, and its silver streaks looked like a planned accessory rather than any indication of age. She wore no jewellery, and the overall effect was one of elegant austerity. If her goal was to remind the Ministry types of her authority, Hermione thought, she would certainly succeed. Hermione even felt a little breathless in her presence.

"Two hours, my friends," Minerva said crisply as she reached them. "We'll give them two hours, and after that, I think we will have done our duty."

The two hours passed quickly. If Minerva had a miserable time, she didn't show it; she circulated and smiled and spoke decisively and listened with becoming attentiveness to even the most pompous of bureaucrats, until Hermione couldn't imagine that there was a Ministry official left who wasn't convinced that Hogwarts was in very good hands indeed, thank you.

She and Neville enjoyed themselves without pretense. After a few uncomfortable minutes with people who kept praising his war service, Neville went off to dance with Hannah Abbott, who had come with her father. Hermione managed to avoid the few members of her own former Ministry department; she didn't feel like entering into conversations about how things were with Ron or when she'd be returning. But she had a long, interesting talk with Lucal Bond, the Transfiguration instructor from the Auror training division. When Minerva eventually tracked her down, they were deep into fascinating discussion of the theory of matter-energy transfer.

"But here comes Professor McGonagall," Lucal said, his face lighting up. "She'll definitely know. Professor, we've been discussing Gilfer's theory of. . ."

"Not tonight, Mr Bond," Minerva said with a smile. "I've had about as much festive cheer as I can bear, and I am leaving _now_. You're welcome to stay, of course, Hermione," she added. "Mr Longbottom has elected to remain; I believe he has discovered a hitherto-unknown interest in dancing. Or at least in Miss Abbott."

"No, I'm ready to go," Hermione said, letting her empty wine glass Vanish as it was charmed to do. She nodded good-bye to Lucal and followed the professor toward the main door.

Minerva was quite efficient about making her way through the leave-taking gauntlet, and very soon they had Apparated to the road outside Hogwarts.

The cold, clear night was a relief after the heat and closeness of the party. They walked in companionable silence towards the school gates, the wind lifting their cloaks, the moonlight blanketing the countryside. The quiet was absolute. If only she had a time-turner again, Hermione thought, she could stay in these moments forever.

---///---

Dimmed though they were for the night, the torches of the entrance hall seemed bright after the dark walk; coming inside was like waking up after a cozy dream. She blinked, feeling rather like Cinderella after the stroke of midnight.

Minerva seemed back in a more workaday mode as well. She checked the castle wards with her wand and then headed toward the staircase that led to her office. "Thank you for going along, Hermione," she said, turning back briefly. "I hope it wasn't too much of an ordeal."

"No, not at all. I enjoyed it, actually," Hermione answered. And then, before she could change her mind, she said, "Minerva? Could I. . .would you. . .like a drink? In my rooms? It's still early, and I have some nice Muggle liqueur. . ."

She thought Minevera hesitated, but only briefly, before she said, "That would be very nice, thank you."

---///---

Hermione watched as Minerva, glass in hand, settled into a chair near the fire, her silver robe and silvering hair glinting golden in the warm light. She wasn't a beautiful woman as the world defined such things, but Hermione rarely remembered that. She remembered instead something Harry had once said, after he and Ron had flown to school in an enchanted automobile, and McGonagall had descended on them in fury.

The experience had driven Harry to flights of metaphor: "She stood there looking like. . .like some sort of wrathful eagle," he'd said afterwards, and Hermione had pictured her exactly. She'd been impressed by Harry's insight -- of course it had to be "wrathful," she'd thought, turning the word over on her tongue, tasting its full, bitter bite; "angry" wouldn't have done nearly as well. Anger was for mortals; wrath was for the gods, for forces of nature, for. . .

"Miss Granger?" The dry voice pulled her back to the present. There was no wrath in Minerva's face now, but in the sharp firelight, Hermione could clearly see the eagle. "Are you with me?"

"Oh, sorry! I was just thinking about the time Harry and Ron flew the car to Hogwarts. They still remember how furious you were."

Minerva chuckled. "'Murderous' would be more accurate, I think. Flying the car was bad enough, but then they let themselves be caught by Professor Snape! If you could have seen how smug Severus looked when he came to fetch me from the opening feast. . ." A shadow passed over her face when she spoke of Snape, and Hermione thought of his portrait on the wall of the headmistress's office. Every time she'd been there during the course of the term, his frame had been empty.

"Can you. . .does his portrait talk to you?" Hermione asked, hoping she wasn't overstepping.

"Sometimes." McGonagall leaned back in her chair, and the wing of it concealed her expression. "We. . .he thinks very highly of you, in his own way, Hermione."

"I used to think. . ." Hermione hesitated, but pressed on. Since the Christmas of her third year, she'd always wondered. "I know you were Heads of opposing Houses, but still, I used to think you two were friends."

"Yes." Minerva's answer came readily, but she didn't elaborate, and Hermione could tell that the subject was closed.

So in a lighter tone, she said, "Most students preferred stories of deadly rivalry, of course. It made things more interesting. Neville and I often wonder what the common-room gossip is about us now. We know there must be some; when we were students, we were always speculating about the staff."

McGonagall sat forward again, smiling. "In my student days, we were all convinced that Headmaster Dippet was madly in love with one of Madam Rosmerta's predecessors, just because the poor man liked to escape to the Broomsticks every now and then for a stiff drink."

Hermione hesitated once more, but only briefly. For she felt that here, in this out-of-time moment, was her chance to turn to the next page -- to find out what she needed to know, even if she still wasn't sure how the story would end.

It was time, she decided, for a little bit of Gryffindor bravery, though perhaps not for Gryffindor directness. Once certain things were said aloud, they couldn't be retracted. "One can be master only of words unspoken," Grandmother Marks had often noted. Even elephants were more easily ignored when under carpets.

With a mental salute to Professor Snape, Hermione chose to take the Slytherin way. She'd approach the truth, but do it slant. Indirection was all.

"In _my_ student days," she said, "a lot of people thought Headmaster Dumbledore was madly in love with _you._ People were sure that the two of you were secretly married."

She expected some outrage or at least exasperation, but McGonagall just shook her head, not in the least surprised by this revelation. "I'm afraid that ridiculous rumour circulated for decades," she said. "At first we tried to counter it, but the more we denied it, the more firmly entrenched it became. Eventually we simply ignored the whole silly business. But honestly -- what were people thinking? Albus was over forty years my senior."

"Would the age difference have mattered, if you'd loved him?" Hermione asked as neutrally as she could, taking care not to look Minerva in the eye, lest she reveal too much.

"Of cour -- " Minerva began sharply but then broke off and gazed into the fire before beginning again, more gently. "Yes, it would. It would matter a great deal. Not in any moral sense, you understand. But no romantic relationship could survive such inequality."

"It would depend on the couple, surely?" Hermione said, not able, yet, to let Minerva's words have anything other than an academic meaning.

"You're right, it's a mistake to generalise. I should speak only for myself." Minerva drew a breath, and this time she looked at Hermione steadily as she said, "The age difference would matter to me, Hermione. And the fact that I had been Dumbledore's student: that would matter, too. It's formative, that teacher-student bond, or at least it is for me. We know our students from the time they are children. I don't think that's something most of us can get beyond."

She reached across the space between them to clasp Hermione's hand briefly, her fingers warm against Hermione's icy ones. "You're a teacher yourself now, my dear. I hope you understand what I'm saying."

"I. . .yes, Professor. I think I do," Hermione heard herself reply, interested to note how calm and controlled she sounded. They might have been discussing class schedules or lesson plans. It was as if the bubble that was always inside her when she thought of Minerva McGonagall had expanded to enclose her completely, so that she could hear and see and touch -- but not feel. The bubble would burst, later, but for the moment, she felt nothing at all, except the continued desire to make things clear.

"At least you haven't been alone," she said. "There's Professor Grubbly-Plank."

McGonagall's eyes narrowed, and Hermione waited -- almost hoped -- for an angry reply. But after an endless moment, Minerva nodded. "Indeed. There is always Professor Grubbly-Plank." Then she stood. "I should go; we've both had a long day. Thank you for the drink, and for your company."

Putting down her empty glass, she gathered her cloak and hat. At the door, she turned. "I wasn't in love with Albus, but I did love him. It's important to understand that the absence of one kind of love doesn't preclude another. Good night, Hermione."

She let herself out without waiting for a response.

Long after the headmistress had gone, Hermione stayed by the fire, watching it turn to embers and then ashes while she thought. About Minerva. And Ron. And Albus Dumbledore and Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. About men, and women, and love. And about herself. Not until pink streaks of dawn began to lighten the sky did she rise stiffly and take herself to bed.

---///---

**2006**

When Ron owled Hermione the next afternoon to ask if she'd like to go dancing on New Year's Eve, she said yes. When she ended up staying past the hour for the castle gates to be locked, and he offered her the bed in their old spare room, she said yes. When, on the second night, he suggested that they wouldn't need the spare room, she agreed. She didn't return to Hogwarts until the day before term, and by then, she had decided to see if she and Ron could work things out.

When, in February, Madam Pomfrey confirmed that Hermione was pregnant, she sent Headmistress McGonagall her official resignation, effective July 1.

In September, Rose Granger Weasley was born. Minerva sent a lovely blanket, charm-stitched with protection runes, and when Neville came to see the baby, he mentioned, casually, but with a look at Hermione, that the headmistress had taken her summer holiday with Willa Grubbly-Plank.

After Christmas, Ron and Hermione bought a house on the other side of Ottery-St. Catchpole from the Burrow, and all their friends and relatives agreed, then and many times over the passing years, how wonderfully stable their relationship was once they'd got over their little rough patch.


	9. Chapter 9: Epilogue

A/N at end

**Epilogue**

---///---

**2020 -- Diagon Alley**

_Family will receive guests Thursday, 2:00-4:00 p.m., Waldrick's, Diagon Alley_

Even though she knew it by heart, Hermione looked again at the black-edged clipping from the _Prophet_ as she stood on the pavement outside Waldrick's at a few minutes past four o'clock.

For the previous hour, she had been sitting in a café just down the road, watching as a thin but steady stream of mostly-older people went in and out of Waldrick's. Neville had come and gone, as had a red-eyed Professor Sprout, who'd been holding the arm of an upright, white-haired old man. Hagrid, sniffling, wearing his seemingly-indestructible hairy suit, had gone in with Madam Hooch, both of them moving much more slowly than of old. Hermione recognised several people from the Ministry and from the Hogwarts Board of Governors, and there were some strangers that she'd guessed were friends of the nephew and his wife.

But the last visitors had come out at least a quarter-hour ago, and no one new had gone in. It was now or never, Hermione thought.

The door opened soundlessly as she approached. The main dining room was empty and silent, but soft light spilled from the corridor to her right, and Hermione followed it to the private room in the back.

A rotund, middle-aged wizard was standing near the door, talking to someone inside. "Enna and I will be more than happy to see you home," he was saying, although Hermione didn't have the impression he would have been happy at all. "You know it's no trouble. . ."

"No. Thank you." Minerva McGonagall's voice had lost none of its authority in the nearly fifteen years since Hermione had seen her. "You're very kind, but I will be fine on my own."

Just then the wizard caught sight of Hermione and exchanged his slightly petulant expression for a doleful smile. "Ah, here's one last guest, Enna," he said to a busily-dressed woman who now appeared at his side. And to Hermione, "We were just about to leave, actually, but it's good of you to have come. Wilton Grubbly-Plank." He extended a hand. "Were you one of Auntie's students?"

"A long time ago, yes," Hermione replied, giving his hand the briefest of shakes as she stepped into the room. She had an impression of candlelight and dark-panelled walls, but it was Minerva who captured her attention.

The retired headmistress stood next to a carved chair, her black robes unrelieved by any of her usual green. Her hair was almost completely silver now, but she still wore her square spectacles, and age had only slightly softened the sharp planes of her face. Her eyes were fixed imperiously on Wilton and Enna, but she turned as Hermione entered.

"Miss Granger," she said, with something of the same stern edge she'd used with Wilhelmina's nephew.

Hermione had expected to feel awkward or intrusive, but instead, she felt only the overwhelming sadness that seemed to pulse from under Minerva's careful façade. She wanted to enfold the old woman in her arms, but even now didn't quite dare. "I'm so sorry," she said, and found herself answering Minerva's sudden tears with her own.

---///---

But Minerva was still Minerva, and after a just a few moments, she pulled herself together and conjured two handkerchiefs, smiling ruefully as she handed one to Hermione.

"My apologies, Miss Granger," she said, removing her spectacles to wipe her eyes. "But it's not been the easiest of afternoons." This was said with a slight dry nod towards Wilhelmina's relatives, and Hermione was glad her back was to them, so that she could flash a quick grin.

Wilton cleared his throat. "Well, we'll be off, then, Minerva. If you're sure you'll be all right?"

"Very sure, thank you," Minerva answered, with a nod to each of them. "Goodbye, Wilton. Enna."

"Now, you keep in touch," Enna said, speaking for the first time since Hermione's arrival. But she left the room without waiting for an answer, tugging Wilton with her. As they disappeared down the corridor, Enna's voice floated back: "I can't believe Auntie left that old harridan _everything_."

Minerva rolled her eyes and waved her wand, and for a mad moment Hermione thought she was hexing the departing Grubbly-Planks. But she was merely Summoning a bottle of firewhisky and two glasses from a small bar in the back of the room.

Pouring them both a generous measure, she said, "Wilton the Wanker. That's what Willa called him."

Her eyes filled with tears again, and she turned away. Hermione looked hastily down into her glass. When she ventured to glance up once more, Professor McGonagall was back in control.

"Wilton was right about one thing, Hermione," she said. "It _was_ good of you to come. It means more than I can say. Thank you."

Hermione couldn't think of any response that didn't sound trite, so she settled for clasping Minerva's hand.

"She'd been very ill," said Minerva suddenly. "She was ready to die, and it was time. More than time."

No "passed away" euphemisms for Minerva McGonagall, of course. No matter who had died.

"What will you do now?" Hermione asked, and then wished she hadn't. She wished she had spared both of them the bleakness of Minerva's voice as she answered, "Carry on, I suppose."

"I'm sorry," said Hermione, knowing it was inadequate, but not knowing what else she could say.

"It's all right." Minerva smiled at her briefly. "Or it will be. In time."

She sat down almost absently, sipping the firewhisky, her mind clearly far away from this subdued and peaceful room. She was silent for so long that Hermione was wondering if she ought to leave or offer to take Minerva home when the professor said, "At times like this, it's easy to think about regrets, Hermione."

"Do you have many?" It wasn't the most diplomatic of questions, but Hermione wanted to know.

"Of course. One can't live without having regrets. But you can't live _in_ them, either. I try to deal with them as I would an unwanted Legilimens -- Occlumency against the past."

Any response Hermione might have made was forestalled by the arrival of a plump, red-faced witch from Waldrick's staff.

"Just wanted to see how you were doing, Headmistress," she said, her expression kind and concerned. "Or if there's anything we can bring you. . .?"

"No, thank you, Bethen. Everything has been very nice indeed, but Miss Granger and I will be leaving shortly. Please thank Mrs Waldrick and tell her I'll be in touch soon."

Bethen nodded and disappeared, and Hermione waited for Professor McGonagall to offer a polite "thank-you-for-coming" speech. But instead, Minerva reached out to pull her into a wordless embrace, just as Wilhelmina had done to Minerva herself on that long-ago night of Dumbledore's death.

Hermione felt the old, familiar bubble-like sensation rise in her chest at she held her teacher close and thought about those regrets she didn't have.

She didn't regret loving Minerva. Or Ron. She didn't regret the path she'd finally chosen.

Her life hadn't been wasted. And she hadn't been unhappy.

As an ending to a story, it was perhaps as much as most people could hope for.

~~Fin

---///---

**A/N** --We've reached the end of "Storytelling," or at least, the end of_ this_ telling of a story. I do apologize to those of you who were hoping for genuine Minerva/Hermione romance: it just didn't want to happen here. But as Minerva says in an earlier chapter, there are other forms of love besides the romantic, and in that sense, this tale is very much a love story.

I thank all of you who have taken the time to leave reviews; your comments have been so thoughtful and kind. Reviews are always a pleasure, but the ones offered here have been particularly welcome. I appreciate them and you.

I'll begin posting a new Minerva story next Sunday; see you then.


	10. Chapter 10: One More Thing

A final note to "Storytelling" --

This fic was posted as part of the "Hermione Big Bang" fiction fest at hosted at Live Journal. Over a million words of Hermione-centric fic were posted on September 19, 2009 (Hermione's 30th birthday).

If you'd like to see the excellent artwork drawn expressly for "Storytelling" by Ghot, La Dissonance, and Cathy Bites, go to the link below and look at Chapters 10, 11, and 12:

http: // www. hermione . magical-worlds .us / viewstory . php?sid = 21&textsize=0&chapter=10

Just be sure to remove the spaces from the URL.

While you're at the site, enjoy some of the many other fine Hermione stories and artworks (and leave reviews! Authors and artists love them.)

Thank again for reading.

~~Kelly


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